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Three months after a devastating fire in Milldale destroyed one home and damaged two others, the firefighters’ union says it is frustrated that Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) declined to carry out a formal operational review of the incident despite ongoing resourcing issues on the Hibiscus Coast.
The February 19 fire spread quickly between houses, crossing property boundaries and causing extensive damage.
Martin Campbell, vice-president of the New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union, says they requested FENZ to conduct an operational review to look at several concerns. These include how building design may have contributed to the rapid spread of the fire, emergency crews’ access impeded by narrow roads in new subdivisions, the availability and workload of local volunteer crews, and problems with outdated mapping data on firefighters’ tablets.
Campbell says an operational review is a formal, independent process that produces recommendations for improvements unlike action reports, which are officers’ debriefs and notes taken after the incident.
When asked by Hibiscus Matters why no formal review was undertaken, a FENZ spokesperson responded: “We reviewed the Milldale fire and we are satisfied with our response.”
Campbell says they are frustrated that FENZ isn’t doing the review as apart from the other issues, the ongoing resourcing problems are putting firefighters and the Coast community at risk.
FENZ runs a hybrid system on the Hibiscus Coast, called a Yellow Watch, with career firefighters at Silverdale station covering the weekday shift, and volunteers on call at night and weekends. Manly station is volunteer-run, and backed up by Silverdale, which also supports Puhoi, which is currently unavailable during weekdays due to a volunteer shortage.
If Silverdale needs backup, appliances are sent from East Coast Bays or Albany stations, about a 21 minutes drive up the SH1 motorway.
Campbell argues this system is no longer sufficient for a fast-growing urban community.
“The real issue for firefighters is having to respond to these incidents not knowing when backup will arrive. We rely on it to get there fast because if anything happens to the first crew, we need to know we have help that’s available and can rescue our crew if something happens.
“At the moment, if the Manly crew is not available, and we have an incident at Gulf Harbour, it’s a 15 to 20 minute drive to get out there, so someone’s house could be on fire for 15 or 20 minutes before we arrive, and that house realistically would be gone.”
Every minute or more that a person is waiting, especially if it’s a car accident or cardiac arrest, it’s time critical. People’s lives depend on those minutes. We are very vulnerable, and it doesn’t take a lot for these stations to be busy.”
FENZ is aware of the resourcing issues. In an October 2024 internal memo, released under the Official Information Act to the union, Assistant Area Commander Shaun Pilgrim flagged concerns to district managers, warning that relying on backup from East Coast Bays meant local response times were often outside service delivery standards.
He noted that the ongoing growth of the Hibiscus Coast and Orewa North was adding to the strain. However, FENZ ruled out adding 24/7 full-time crews, saying this would require a rebuild of Silverdale station, and instead preferred the option of an additional Yellow Watch to support Manly station.
Campbell says although adding a Yellow Watch would solve some of the problems, it doesn’t address the ongoing volunteer shortages.
“If you compare the Hibiscus Coast to similar populated centres, the others have more 24/7 career firefighter staffing and there are ways to have 24/7 crews, like they did in Christchurch when their stations got taken out by the earthquakes. It would be an inconvenience to the people working there, but it would be short-term pain for long- term gain in the community.
Information obtained by Hibiscus Matters under the Official Information Act shows ongoing resourcing issues, with stations struggling to fully man appliances due to crew shortages.
Over the 14 months from March 1, 2024 to April 30, 2025, out of 284 incidents recorded for Manly station, 78 (27.5 per cent) were short-crewed and 61 (21.5 per cent) were non-responses (indicates no crew available/mechanical issues or truck turned back).
Silverdale station under Yellow Watch, for the same period, covered 1106 incidents.
The first appliance covered 598 incidents, and was short-crewed 122 times (20.4 per cent) and had non response 16 times (2.7 per cent)
The second appliance covered 418 incidents and was short-crewed 115 times (27.5 per cent) and non-response 109 times (26.1 per cent), mainly on the weekday dayshift, which had 96 non-response (88 per cent)
These are overall figures and differ for each shift.
Campbell says the over-reliance on the volunteers is putting the community increasingly at risk.
“The volunteers are trying to do their best but it is using them rather than looking at what is best for the community. All it would take is to have a car accident and house fire happen at the same time and we would be in severe trouble if trucks from East Coast Bays or Albany had to come up but weren’t available. Someone would always respond, it’s just how long that response would take.”
