Nau mai haere mai! Paekākāriki’s Fire Brigade is having a big birthday and you’re invited! We extend a warm welcome to all the village folk, friends and whānau to come in for a visit on our open day on Saturday 8th of November 10-12pm. There will be station activities, a sausage sizzle, community education, a chance to explore inside the fire truck, and some time to get to know our local 361 crew. This year Paekākāriki Volunteer Fire Brigade celebrates eighty years of service to the Paekākāriki and Kāpiti Coast Community.
In the days before fire brigades, everyone was a firefighter. In 1856 a local government regulation required all Wellington citizens to keep two buckets of water ready so they could help in case of fire, which all households did, until the opening of Aotearoa’s first volunteer fire service which was founded in the 1850s. In 1878 Superintendent Harris said:
‘We are all held to be sentinels who by day and night guard alike, the rich and poor against the insidious approach of the ‘fire fiend.’
There are now nearly twelve thousand people who volunteer for Fire and Emergency in Aotearoa, with women increasing in numbers annually. Women often worked in administrative jobs at fire stations, and some were firefighters in volunteer brigades by the 1960s, but they struggled to be accepted as career firefighters. When Aucklander Anne Barry applied to become a firefighter in 1979, she was turned down on the grounds of her sex. Barry took the case to the Human Rights Commission, which ruled in her favour.
Serving as a volunteer at the Paekākāriki Fire Brigade for the last forty-four years, and also a recent recipient of the Kāpiti Good Sorts award for fire services, former chief Ash Richardson played a particularly important role in allowing women to join our brigade. In the 1990s volunteer numbers were low, and he saw an opportunity for stay-at-home mums and other women around the village to join, knowing that whilst their children were in school, they would have time to participate.
‘I could see a gap in our recruitment process. When I joined the Paekākāriki Brigade, there was a no women policy, so I brought it up at one of our AGM’s, we had a vote, and it was unanimously accepted. We ended up with six out of 18 in the team being women which was fantastic for the brigade and for our community. We’ve never looked back.’
(His wife Glenda, is also a life honorary member for all of her help alongside him over the years, along with his son Aaron, who is Deputy Chief)
Since then, firefighting in Aotearoa has evolved into a combined mix of men and women in paid full-time work, and volunteer responders that make up Fire and Emergency New Zealand today. Career firefighters make up only 20 percent of Fire and Emergency’s firefighting manpower, the remaining 80 percent of firefighters in this country are volunteers!
Our volunteer brigades are also what are known as first responders and are often first at medical emergencies simultaneously. Police, fire and ambulance services work together at any incident to cover each other and provide safety. These volunteers cover over 31,000 incidents in our country each year, including road accidents, medical incidents, and building and vegetation fires.
Volunteer firefighters need to be physically fit, and pass a medical test and security clearance before being accepted. They come from a range of diverse backgrounds, are on-call and alerted through the siren, pagers and apps on their phones. The minimum age to become a volunteer firefighter in the New Zealand Fire Service is sixteen, although those under eighteen require parental consent. Training is taught within the local volunteer fire brigade at weekly training nights and concluded in a seven-day residential recruit course, held at the National Training Centre. Training includes hose and ladder drills, portable pumps, and breathing apparatus use.
Our Paekākāriki brigade attends the majority of local incidents, which averages around fifty emergencies a year. Callouts are often for motor vehicle accidents and house fires, but can be for anything from children stuck in swings, to chemical spills, surging power lines, flooding washing machines, or overturned trampolines. One resident told me his mother used to like to call the brigade, just so several handsome men in uniform would turn up!
In Paekākāriki back in the day, our fire siren used to be turned off between eleven and seven in the morning, but after a late night incident many years ago, it can now be heard all over the village, and when it does, all volunteers available drive or run quick smart, and often in concession to the station, usually within two to three minutes. Firefighters grab a tag and the appropriate safety gear depending on the type of emergency, and will leave the station in record time, rain or shine, day or night.
Contrary to popular belief, our volunteers do everything that paid firefighters do, and being between Porirua and Paraparaumu, Paekākāriki Brigade are often first on the scene to some horrific and catastrophic situations. Our station has only volunteers, but others have a mix of volunteer and career firefighters. At any given incident volunteers and career firefighters work side by side as a confident team, who all have roles to play.
I’m told repeatedly by the public, and by those who have had our volunteers turn up at their house or roadside at all hours, that there is something really special about our brigade’s vibe, which makes sense considering the absolute charm of our village, of course we have exceptionally charming firefighters. As another local tells me:
‘They were honest, full of integrity and kindness, and all with beautiful trustworthy smiles. I felt really safe when they came out to investigate my whare. We are so lucky to have these men and women in our town.’
After watching Milli, our youngest brigade member reverse the fire truck into the station like an absolute star, I asked her what it means to her being a part of the team, and she writes,
‘There’s a certain thrill, adrenaline rush, excitement, dread, honour and privilege getting into the truck, although it’s never a happy feeling, considering that someone is likely in trouble. Everyone in the brigade is so incredible in every way, they have my back, literally life and death and I have theirs now. I’m working on becoming a career firefighter.’ Which she adds, is a dream come true, having loved the idea of being a firefighter since she was three, with an incredible passion for the chance to help people.
Not all call outs are serious, as one of our firefighters (and local footballers) James recalls in a recent 111 alert, regarding rescuing a man out of a toilet at the local sports ground (which he says, is not even a public loo but this man decided to pop in anyway)
‘We’d been at the pub for five minutes waiting to order a beer when the siren went off. My first thought was ‘Oh no, this wasn’t part of my birthday plan.’ The call said: Person stuck in public toilet. The address, 98 The Parade – hang on a minute, that’s the football club! Without a car, I had to decline the call but apparently an elderly gentleman was wandering past the football club, saw the door open to the visitors changing room and decided to use the loo. After discovering the door was stuck and calling 111, the boys at the club were as confused as our firefighters, who searched the public toilets on the edge of the field, before using the ‘brigade’s key’ to bust open the door to the visitor toilet in the sports club. The football lads were surprised to see it wasn’t a member of the opposing team, as was our elderly gentleman to see ten footballers standing around cheering, with two firefighters celebrating another great save story!
All joking aside, these men and women are real life heroes, who will be up and out the door (wearing an array of bedroom attire, pajamas, their partners dressing gowns) often in darkness, whilst we all sleep, to give their own time every day of the year, regularly on their own work days and public holidays, and often losing wages in doing so. In a recent Listener magazine it says, ‘According to the UFBA the annual economic value given by volunteers is $659 million’ and they do it all for free!’
So why do it? This is what one of our volunteers replied to this question.
‘What I love about being part of the Paekākāriki Fire Brigade is the strong sense of community that it brings and the satisfaction of knowing that you’re giving back and contributing to such an amazing community. With no local family around, for us the Paekākāriki Fire Brigade is like a de-facto family, full of incredible people, all with a positive outlook who’d all go out of their way to help anyone – especially a fellow member of the brigade.
He goes on to share a story about a training event up in Rotorua, which I think proves, just how entertaining and special our crew are:
‘The hotel bar was expensive, especially for broke volunteers, so I offered to “host” a few beers in my room on our last night of training. Sean was there first, and we cracked into a couple of big Tuatara beers to celebrate the occasion. Somehow we decided it would be funny to take off our shirts and hop into bed together to get a photo to send to our whatsapp group chat. The first punter to turn up was a rural bogan who seemed a bit shocked when I asked if he could take a photo of Sean and I lying in bed, shirts off, clinking drinks with massive grins on our faces. A picture says a thousand words.’
It’s obvious in speaking to our team of volunteers, that although they work seriously and extremely professionally when in ‘work mode’ there is also a lot of fun to be had in the brigade. Monday training nights are informative learning affairs but full of banter, and the chance to have a beer or two and a kōrero afterwards. There’s even a current bake off to see who is the best cakemaker! Every year there’s a Christmas party complete with axe throwing, kai and music, and awards are given for various mishaps including, Bad-Arse-Mother-Trucker driver’s award, and the self explanatory, Balls Up award, which always gets great laughs on the various balls up stories that have happened throughout the year. As one of the awards on the wall of the station says, our 361 crew are truly worth their weight in gold. They are a whānau, and in case of emergency, they are your whānau too.
And as our wonderful current Chief Furfie says, They are a bunch of bloody good buggers.
