Palmerston North fire station’s busiest truck left unused due to staff shortages

Palmerston North fire station was without the man power to use their main pump truck on Friday after a crew was sent down to Levin to help out with staff shortages.

It was the first time in more than 28 years that the station’s main truck had sat empty in the engine bay and senior station manager Tony Sealey thought the situation could remain the same until Monday.

“[Levin] were short today and they couldn’t crew a truck. So we sent a crew from Palmerston North to Levin, because they have only one truck of career staff and the other truck has volunteers.

“If we couldn’t crew Levin today then that would’ve meant there was no career staff available for Levin,” Sealey said.

The Levin station currently works on a yellow watch which means they work from 7am to 5.30pm and are staffed by a crew of volunteers and a crew of professional firefighters, he said.

With one crew seconded to Levin it left Palmerston North station a truck down.

The station have a minimum staff number system which tells them the minimum number of staff they need to work safely.

Sealey said they have been struggling with staff shortages for a couple of months now and had come close to standing a truck down on multiple occasions.

But this time there was no one to help them out, and the main pump truck had to go off duty.

Sealey said the truck called, Palmerston North 221, will “probably” sit out on Saturday and Sunday as well due to being four people short.

“Our Palmerston North truck, Palmerston North 221, is the busiest truck in the country for working jobs.”

The truck responds to almost every fire, medical call or rescue situation in the area and to have it out of action was a “big deal”.

Sealey had been in the job for 20 years, and never in his time had this happened before.

“It means Palmerston North goes from having 12 firefighters on duty, you know, crewing three trucks, to eight firefighters on duty, crewing two trucks.”

The district was scheduled to get three more firefighters, but that won’t be until the end of the year. In the meantime, they are getting a couple of people from Wellington and Masterton to boost up numbers.