Mo Stevens, outspoken Waihi Fire Chief: Heroism, teams, callouts

FOR THE COMMUNITY: Waihi Fire chief Mo Stevens. Photo / Alison Smith

Mo Stevens wasn't overly keen when two of his mates asked him to join the Waihi volunteer fire brigade.

Forty two years on, including 23 as fire chief, he has no plans to take his long teeth out of the brigade.

"We've had some of the most horrendous things that I've been to, happen here in Waihi," says the 75-year-old.

Among them, five people burned to death in a house fire, the heroism of brigade volunteers jumping in to a house that suddenly collapsed into a hole in the earth with three children trapped inside, and countless motor vehicle accidents with Waihi bounded by winding or treacherous roads.

When his colleague Jim "the beetle" Measures leaned over to put his boots on in the fire truck and had a massive heart attack, so that he never sat up again - the memory was etched forever.

"We had at least 600 people at his funeral."

At Christmas "Jacinda" gave volunteer firefighters a one-off annual payment of $300 for the first time ever, which proves at 56 cents a day, volunteer firefighters don't do it for the money.

And yet you can't just sign up at the Waihi brigade.

Eight of its members are gold star holders which means they've given 25 years' service.

Mo says the youngest is in his early 20s, and all get a say at the table. While all are male, their jobs vary.

"Chippies, plumbers, four or five from the mine and a few with their own businesses."

Becoming a Waihi brigade volunteer is about as tough as joining a swanky city golf club.

"When someone says they're interested, we get them here on a Tuesday to introduce themselves and say why they want to join, then the Senior Station Officer spends an hour with them explaining what we expect of them and they say what they expect to get from us.

"From there it goes to the brigade for a nominee and seconder, and it's put to a vote. After that they do three months, then at the end of that we decide if it's going to work."

It's not about exclusivity, it's about team fit, says Mo.

"You have to be all for one. If you're at a house fire, you've got to know those guys behind you have got your back."

Mo has got himself in trouble for speaking out over changes to the way things are done over the years, and he speaks with cynicism of how computers would mean less paperwork.

One thing that hasn't changed is the beer and a yarn after a stressful callout.

"If it's run of the mill you are in and out. When the wives and kids arrive you know it's something pretty big. We stick together."

The uncertainty of where each pager callout will lead next is part of the "fun" but he vividly remembers the "house in the hole" at Waihi, when an underground mining cavity swallowed up a residential home with children trapped inside.

"We got the callout at midnight and the pager said 'house down hole'. I thought, what sort of sh** is this? I saw the roof sticking out of the mud, about 500cm.

"The three guys that went down just slung a rope around and went straight down, didn't think about it any further.

"The water mains had broken, and the water was all pouring in and we had to get the council to shut them off. We turned the other standpipes on full to cut the water to the hole because it was caving in [the earth].

"There were still two or three kids down there, you could see them through the soffit eaves of the roof. We talked to the kids, they climbed out and followed the light of the torch," he says.

"Once they were out we were pretty right."

WAIHI BRIGADE HISTORY: Fire Chief Mo Stevens stands with a fire appliance and Waihi Brigade hand reel that is more than 100 years old. Photo / Alison Smith

The majority of callouts are smoke and sometimes neighbourly disputes over tyres or plastics being burned, but State Highway 2 and the gorge keeps the brigade busy.

"It has got worse over the years. Twenty years ago, one of the ex-deputy members who'd been in the brigade 37 years had never been to a car accident."

Mo questions the rationale of government cost-saving decisions.

"Successive governments want to centralise everything so we don't have a hospital anymore and a lot of times when we do get a call we're waiting for an ambulance to transport somebody to a hospital.

"We used to get the helicopter once or twice year, now it's more like three or four times a week."

But serendipitously there always seems to be a member of the public to help when the brigade needs them.

"When we get an accident, you can bet within four or five minutes you will have a couple of hospital nurses, a doctor. I joke that's why you can't get an appointment at the hospital because they're all out here. But we always seem to get 'em, which is great."

Asked if he had any message to the community, Mo said: "The biggest thing now is smoke alarms and a plan to get out of the house. Make sure the kids understand that. That's when the lip goes down in the fire brigade - there's nothing worse than a child who's missing or in an accident. It's not good."