MPs from across the house support an inquiry into the fire at Loafer’s Lodge, although it is not yet clear what form this will take.
Two questions in particular stick out as topics of concern: whether all multi-storey residential buildings should be required to have sprinklers installed and whether New Zealand’s firefighters are equipped to fight these kinds of blazes.
Both were raised by Green Party co-leader James Shaw in Parliament on Tuesday after Internal Affairs Minister Barbara Edmonds spoke in response to the fire. National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis did not specify areas of concern for her party, but asked Edmonds to work together with the Opposition on terms of reference. Willis’ leader Christopher Luxon had earlier spoken about his interest in looking at the issue of sprinklers.
Shaw asked whether there would be “urgent moves to improve the approach to retrofitting sprinkler systems”.
There were about 94 people in the building at the time of the fire. The building was four storeys tall.
The building that hosted Loafers Lodge was built in 1971 and has had a number of uses over the years before opening as the lodge in 2006.
New Zealand’s building code does not mandate sprinklers in multi-storey residential buildings like Loafers Lodge. For some particularly large buildings, like those over 10 storeys, sprinklers are usually required.
Building and Construction Minister Megan Woods, who is responsible for building regulations, said Loafers Lodge had passed its “BWOF” (Building Warrant of Fitness) earlier this year, which certified that it had everything it was required to under the code and that these systems were maintained.
There are multiple reasons why Loafers Lodge would not have had sprinklers under the Building Code. The code only requires existing buildings to be brought up to the most recent standards when they undergo alterations or if the local council approves an application for a change of use of the building. According to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), all alterations must comply with the New Zealand Building Code at the time they are completed.
That means an existing building like Loafers Lodge would not have been brought up to the latest standards specified in the Building Code unless it underwent alterations or had a change of use approved by the council. It could still have a BWOF issued certifying its compliance without having the most up-to-date code requirements.
The latest standards would not necessarily require Loafers Lodge to have sprinkler systems. The current standards mean sprinklers would almost certainly be required on buildings taller than 10 storeys, but not on four-storey buildings like the lodge.
Fire safety requirements for individual buildings depend on their design. When a building is being designed, a fire safety engineer will be consulted to recommend the fire safety requirements for that individual building - this would not necessarily include sprinklers unless it numbered more than 10 storeys.
Woods said she was “absolutely” open to looking at Building Code changes in light of the fire.
“With every tragedy a responsible government has to ask the questions - has to address questions that come out of that. We are absolutely open to looking at any of those issues,” Woods said.
She did not know the number of residential buildings that did not have sprinklers installed but said that was a question the Government would “need to look at”.
National leader Christopher Luxon was keen on a review, saying he was “surprised” to discover there were no sprinklers installed.
“I think there’s going to be time for us to actually do a comprehensive review of this incident and out of that will come a whole bunch of recommendations that we should be thinking about as well, but today is not that day,” Luxon said.
He said looking at the issue of sprinklers would be “the obvious place to start”.
“As I understand, it had capacity for 92 residents. I think when you’ve got multi-unit accommodation like that - that would be the obvious place to start to think about having minimum standards and regulations in place there,” he said.
The building code
The fire safety of buildings in New Zealand is regulated under the Building Code.
Dave Gittings, manager of building performance and engineering at MBIE, the agency that oversees the Building Code, told the Herald it was a “performance-based code”.
He said this meant the code did not “prescribe any one fire safety system”.
“New Zealand has a performance-based code which means it focuses on the performance outcomes that the building must achieve and not the specification of individual products, materials, or systems.
“For example, there is no legislative requirement for sprinkler systems,” Gittings said.
One way to comply with the Building Code is for a building to use “acceptable solutions and verification methods”, Gittings said.
“Acceptable solutions” are a list of off-the-shelf building regulations that buildings must comply with to be certified as compliant with the Building Code. They are published by MBIE and if buildings comply with them, building consent authorities like local councils must accept designs as complying with the code.
These are not one-size-fits-all regulations but a list of ways different types of buildings can measure up to what the code requires.
“The most common way that people may choose to comply with the Building Code for protection from fire is through the use of Acceptable Solution C/AS2,” Gittings said.
He said C/AS2, a 158-page booklet of building regulations, covered “a majority of buildings”, with just a few limitations - it does not cover single, stand-alone homes or buildings over 20 storeys tall, for example.
C/AS2 Part 2 sets out minimum standards of fire safety for buildings.
Under those standards sprinklers would generally be required in buildings where:
Loafers Lodge appears to fall short of these requirements, meaning it faced no likely cause to have sprinklers installed under the code, even if it were newly built.
Gittings said there were other reasons outside the Building Code for installing a sprinkler system.
“This may be for insurance purposes, business continuity or increased life safety. The acceptable solution also provides dispensations in other parts of the design if a sprinkler system is present in the building as sprinklers reduce the risk of fire-spread throughout a building,” he said.
New Zealand’s ageing fleet of fire trucks
Fractious pay negotiations between Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) and the Professional Firefighters’ Union (PFU) exposed the parlous state of New Zealand’s fire preparedness.
Just two days ago, the PFU warned that Wellington’s “busiest fire truck” was offline for 58 consecutive hours earlier last week.
In a post to their Instagram account, the PFU said Wellington had been hit by “58 Hours of Chaos” after multiple trucks were out of action.
Wellington’s busiest truck was offline between May 12 and 14 because it did not have enough firefighters to crew it. Two trucks from fire stations close to Loafers Lodge also faced crewing problems, including one truck with a ladder, the kind needed to attend fires in a multi-storey building.
On May 13, Kilbirne’s fire truck was not fully crewed until the night shift and Newtown’s 17-metre ladder truck was offline during its day shift, again because of a lack of staff.
Porirua and Karori trucks were also offline during this period.
Fenz was asked to respond to those specific incidents but was unable to supply answers before deadline.
Despite having a large number of high-rise buildings, Wellington has struggled to field fire trucks with ladders for some time, although photographs from the scene show a truck with a ladder was able to attend this incident.
Wellington has two fire trucks with 32-metre ladder trucks. Last year, one of the trucks was out of action for regular servicing when the other broke down, leaving the city without the trucks necessary to reach some of the city’s taller buildings. One of these trucks was deployed to the lodge, while the other was undergoing maintenance.
Wellington has just two 17-metre “aerial appliances”, the term used to describe a fire truck with a ladder. One is based in Newtown and the other at Avalon. There is also an “elevating monitor” based at Seaview which is able to spray water from a height but not take firefighters.
Edmonds, who is responsible for Fenz, said the fire required resources to be “pulled in from across the Wellington region”.
She said 20 crews in total responded to the fire from across the region.
Fenz’s fleet of fire trucks is ageing.
Most type 3 appliances, industry jargon for the sort of urban fire truck you are likely to see responding to incidents in cities, are of retirement age.
More than 100 of the 180 type 3 trucks in the fleet are over 20 years old, the time at which they might be taken out of service.
The oldest truck was brought into service in 1986, making it older than a handful of MPs.
Responses to Written Parliamentary Questions from former National Party internal affairs spokesman Todd Muller revealed that as of July last year, no new type 3 trucks had been delivered. This was despite a commitment made in 2020 to acquire 36 new type 3 appliances within the next three years.
Fenz did not respond to a query whether any of these trucks had been delivered between last July and now.
Edmonds said that “clearly” the Government had “work to do update and upgrade some of the outdated equipment”.
It follows concerns about use-of-force powers being given to staff.