• The firefighters' union has requested a review of the multi-property fire in North Auckland.
• Martin Campbell highlighted issues with narrow roads, outdated maps, and staffing shortages affecting response times.
• Fire and Emergency will consider the incident and work with councils on urban development challenges.

The firefighters' union has written to Fire and Emergency requesting a review into a serious multi-property fire in North Auckland this week.

One house was destroyed and three others were damaged on Lees St, Wainui on Wednesday.

Professional Firefighters Union vice-president Martin Campbell said he wanted a review to assess crews' ability to respond to fires in small, closely built subdivisions.

It would help determine whether narrow roading, speed calming measures, out-of-date maps or staffing and workload problems had hampered crews' efforts to respond to the fire in a timely manner, he said.

“The ideal solution would be to make sure that the council comes up with a design plan to make sure roads are wide enough to allow fire trucks and other emergency services to get down the road,” said Campbell.

In 2023 firefighters warned they could not get their trucks close to burning houses in high-density projects where buildings are packed close together.

Campbell also called for Fire and Emergency to look into staffing shortages.

The Hibiscus Coast was the second-largest-populated area in Auckland with 70,000 residents – but had only two weekday volunteer fire crews, said Campbell.

“We’d like Fenz [Fire and Emergency NZ] to look at the community of the Hibiscus Coast and staff it appropriately to other similar communities,” he said.

“Invercargill has three 24/7 firefighting crews – here we are just trying to get one”.

Fire and Emergency’s Te Hiku region manager Ron Devlin said it would “consider the incident” to understand what contributed to the fire on Wednesday.

“We continue to work closely with councils and developers on the challenges posed by the intensification of urban development, particularly in relation to building design and firefighting operations,” he said.