Staggering number of False Alarms Made By Cantabrians, as Fire Callouts Slump and Medical and Motor Vehicle Callouts Surge
In episode 1 in the "Putting Out the Flames" series, The Wigram unearths trends for the Fire Service's activities in Christchurch since 2010 and looks at its future in the country's 2nd largest city.
On the 12th of August this year a fire engulfed an overcrowded housing complex in Christchurch. Fire crews, ambulance staff, pedestrians and inhabitants gathered outside 4 Wharenui Road as it burned. A household of Filipino workers had been unaware of the fire brewing in kitchen they shared with a family.
That blaze was real and could have proved deadly. Fortunately nobody was injured or killed.
But Fire and Emergency data shows that since 2012, Christchurch locals have made mouth-watering number of 111 calls amounting to false alarms. With the exception of 2022 when the fire fighters strike saw many callouts going unrecorded, all false alarms (this wider category includes apparatus malfunction, malicious calls, and accidental activation) have made up between 38 and 42 percent of all call-outs year on year since 2010.
But the FENZ figures paint a wider picture of drops across almost all categories of actual callouts with two exceptions: motor vehicle and medical callouts. Fire crews have attended hundreds of medical and motor vehicle callouts in more than a decade.
In this episode, the first in a series called “Putting Out the Flames”, The Wigram explores the FENZ data and the future direction of this vital emergency, finite service. Are these growth areas just a blip or the new normal for the fire service in the growing city of Christchurch? This is but one question asked in this episode.
Fire Callouts
Fire fighters fighting the blaze that consumed a housing complex in August this year.
Given the seemingly daily sightings of Fire Appliances navigating Christchurch’s streets, the plummeting fire callout numbers are at first hard to fathom.
In 2010 the number reached 1998. Since the year of the September earthquake, this figure has not been eclipsed. The number effectively halved to 1107 in 2011, before climbing back up to 1764 in 2013. But after that relapse, the callout numbers tumbled. See here.
2014 1500
2015 1617
2016 1341
2017 1398
2018 1166
2019 1166
In 2020, the callout numbers jumped back to 1511. But the turn around didn’t last, with callouts falling to 1283 in 2021.
When Fire and Emergency finalised its data drop on 27 September2023, it recorded 724 fire callouts. This, when contrasted with 2010, registered a near 64 percent drop.
But the drop in callouts in Christchurch was not limited to fires. Since 2010, recorded figures have shifted in same direction almost universally.
Rescues
If ever there is a spectacle that entertains the public imagination of what a fire service does it is rescues. Yet the figures say otherwise.
In 2010, the service attended 90 rescues. After dropping in 2011 and 2012, the rescue callouts climbed up to 179 by 2015 and 170 in 2016. From then on, the numbers fell off a cliff.
In 2018, the number was 27. And for ever since, rescues calls have not pierced 20 in a calendar year.
Heat, Pressure and Explosives
In 2010, the fire service responded to 86 calls. The yearly rate dropped by almost half to 45. But then it climbed until rising to 95 (2014) and 91 (2015). Since 2015, the callouts have dropped year on year. By 2021, fire fighters responded to 29 calls. This amounted to a drop off of just over 66 percent.
Hazardous Chemical Callouts
These kinds of callouts have featured from time to time on network television news. And yet the figures suggest Christchurch is not struggling here. In 2010, the fire service mobilised for 102 callouts. Between 2011 and 2016, the numbers ebbed up and down, before plummeting to 45 in 2019.
As of 27 September 2023, Christchurch’s firefighters responded to just 20 hazardous callouts. To contextualise the results, since 2018 major callouts have made up only a fraction of recorded mobilisations.
Special Service Callouts
Since 2010, fire fighters have responded to 353 powerline malfunctions, water problems, Police assists, unspecified calls, as well as calls known as “aircraft standby”. During the following decade, the generally trended down until 2020, when they touched 172. In 2021, the figures rose, but by 27 September 2023, only 87 callouts were logged. This amounted to a drop of just over 75 percent.
Public Callouts
Most have likely asked for help from the fire service at some point in our lives. General calls for help in 2010 and 2011, during the days of the Canterbury earthquakes, numbered 458 and 519. In no year since have they exceeded 345 and by 27 September this year numbered only 190.
Unsurprisingly the callout rate for natural disasters has fallen since 2011 and 2012, when 4539 callouts occurred. This year, by 27 September, only 3 had come through.
False Alarms
Above and below: A false alarm at UC in April 2023.
By far the most eye-watering figures come from false alarms.
During the earthquake years, it is no surprise that Cantabrians clocked in 5003 false alarms. They made up just under a third of calls in 2010 and one quarter in 2011.
But since 2012, the percentage of false alarms has ranged between a staggering 38 to 42 percent of all callouts across Christchurch.
But the statistics reveal some growing trends in two areas: motor vehicle and medical callouts.
Motor Vehicle Callouts
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