Te Puke Fire Brigade Update

Te Puke Volunteer Fire Brigade has attended 177 calls so far this year.

Emergency calls at August 5: 177

We have had a busy fortnight with 12 calls.

There were three car fires. One on Saturday morning was a stolen vehicle that had been parked on the side of the road and set alight. Unfortunately, the fire quickly ignited an adjacent shelterbelt, and, in turn, spread to a self-propelled orchard sprayer parked by the shelter. Upon arrival, we were able to prevent the fire from spreading to a nearby shed, which suffered only minor exterior heat damage.

The offenders’ irresponsible actions resulted in the total loss of two vehicles, about 20m of shelterbelt plus minor damage to a shed and a curtain side truck trailer. It also took around three hours of our Saturday morning, although the crew enjoyed a late breakfast in front of the station once we had cleaned up.

As well as the car fires, we had three false alarms and a smoke alarm activation at a kiwifruit workers’ accommodation, caused by burnt food.

There were three calls out of town - two to assist Pāpāmoa with response to the smell of electrical burning and the smell of gas respectively plus one to Mount Maunganui last Monday for a person trapped under a forklift. We were stood down prior to arrival as the Tauranga rescue truck was able to respond so we weren’t required.

We had one medical call to assist St John with CPR, with a great result – after a huge effort by ambulance staff and our volunteers, the patient was transported alive to hospital. The last news we heard patient was responding and outlook positive.

We responded with Maketū Brigade to an alarm activation at Affco Rangiuru Freezing Works last week. While it was minor, it was a fire, although no action was required from us.

Check out the Brigade Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Te.Puke.Fire.Brigade