Review into Fire and Emergency response to Loafers Lodge fatal fire delayed

Five people died in the fierce multi-storey fire at Loafers Lodge, in the Wellington suburb of Newtown, on May 16. Photo / RNZ / Angus Dreaver

Almost six months after the fatal Loafers Lodge fire in Wellington, Fire and Emergency has yet to conclude its review of how it responded.

It said the independent review had been delayed.

Five people died and nearly 100 others were left homeless by the blaze in May at a short-term accommodation building.

Fire and Emergency NZ (Fenz) said at the time it was important to wait for the review to get a pragmatic view of how things ran.

It now says the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council is still on the job, but the lead reviewer was helping with fires in Queensland, which had delayed it.

A similar review into the Auckland convention centre fire in 2019 took 10 months.

Fenz was unable to provide a timeline for when the Loafers review would be finalised.

But it said it had been sharing its investigations and “post-incident analysis” with police and other agencies.

The region's second large-ladder truck was not available the night of the Loafer's Lodge fire as was broken down. Photo / RNZ / Angus Dreaver

In May, Fenz said it had enough resources at the late-night fire, even though a second large-ladder truck could not go as it had been broken down for months.

Its call centres were understaffed at the time.

Inspections have been going on in recent weeks into about 70 buildings identified with characteristics similar to Loafers Lodge.

The Government had said that work would contribute to changes that might be made to building regulations.

Fire safety regulations were strengthened last week, though these were in the works before the Loafers Lodge fire. Key to the update is a requirement in new builds to have smoke alarms that are interconnected, so that when one goes off, they all go off.