History 1971-2000
Page 4




Rescue Tender

In about 1983 the decision was made with the permanent appliances that one would be designated a pump appliance and one a pump rescue appliance. That is, it carries road rescue equipment, high angle rescue lines, chemical suits and a lesser amount of fire hose and equipment.




This setup had worked well and was a trend developing worldwide.




In the period 1981 – 1995, there was a high rotation of personnel at all levels through Porirua, including District Commanders.




In the late 1980’s various mini restructures were tabled, discussed and most never saw the light of day again. But in 1994, the new Fire Service CEO Maurie Cummings came aboard with the promise of, “lets find out all the problems of the Fire Service and then lets fix them”.




Everybody agreed, and participated with the former, but were ignored on the latter.




One significant change was that Porirua, Tawa, Titahi Bay and Plimmerton reverted back to independent fire districts. (One wit even suggested wing nuts on the Porirua Station name board, as it had the old name on one side and the new name on the other and over time the name changed more than once).




In 1995 Gary Hansen became Chief Fire Officer and everybody prepared for the changes in 1996.




This was perhaps the biggest upheaval in Porirua Fire Brigade History for both the paid staff and the volunteers.




Initially it was not known if all existing staff would go or one paid staff appliance and one volunteer appliance would be stationed at Porirua, and there were far more questions than answers.




Eventually one appliance was manned by existing staff and one appliance was manned by Community Safety Team (CST) members and the volunteers retained their own appliance. The existing staff that were surplus were moved elsewhere or took voluntary redundancy.

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