Fire Service Managers are obsessed with the Fire Service Policy of reducing responses of fire appliances and Firefighters to buildings with sprinkler systems.

In a desperate attempt to justify the policy Fire Service Managers are arriving at fire calls and questioning the senior operational Officer on site about their actions and why they have called for extra resources.

At a confirmed fire in a high rise apartment building in Auckland yesterday, the third in 48 hours, the first arriving Officers actions were questioned by a later arriving Manager. Many of our senior operational Officers have had years and years of firefighting experience and are more than capable of determining what resources are required for any given incident, a lot of that is determined by national operational procedures.

This type of scrutiny and questioning of operational Officers has never occurred before.

The overzealous approach of Management simply stems from attempting to enforce this new flawed policy.

Reduced fire appliance responses to sprinklered buildings were always going to be cause for concern. It's not uncommon for fire crews to find partially evacuated buildings, fire alarm systems interfered with to prevent proper operation such as smoke detectors covered up, defective fire alarm/sprinkler systems, Fire Service Managers have been advised of these concerns and have essentially dismissed them.

The combined questioning of our Officers actions at genuine fire emergencies, the reduced response and the issues encountered at the scene all combine for a recipe for disaster in the future.

It was not that long ago that many of these Managers fought for and operated under the systems we strive to maintain today, oh how short some of their memories are.