Volunteers
Career firefighters make up only 20 percent of the New Zealand Fire Service's firefighting manpower; the remaining 80 percent of firefighters are volunteers, who receive no payment for their time or labour. The 8,300 volunteer firefighters belong to the 360 volunteer fire brigades,[1] mainly serving small towns, communities and outer suburbs which career stations do not cover. Volunteer
firefighters respond to 20-30% of all incidents the New Zealand Fire Service attends. Volunteer firefighters have diverse backgrounds. Around 14 percent of volunteer firefighters are women, compared to just 2.8 percent in the career ranks.[1]
The minimum age to become a volunteer firefighter in the New Zealand Fire Service is 16, although those under 18 require parental consent.[6][7] Initial training is done within the local volunteer fire brigade at their weekly training nights and culminates in a seven-day residential recruit course, normally held at the National Training Centre (NTC) in Rotorua or the Woolston Training Centre in Christchurch. Training includes hose drills, ladder drills, portable pumps, and breathing apparatus use (BA), which is carried out in BATB (Breathing Apparatus Training Building) and RFTB (Realistic Fire Training Building) simulators. The BATB is a gas-fired training facility and the RFTB is a live fire scenario. Volunteer units within the NZFS organisation also provide support services over and above the role of the Firefighter. Various Operational Support Units (OSUs) manned by volunteers are attached to Fire Districts and Brigades across New Zealand, which provide non-firefighting assistance at large-scale incidents. These include traffic and crowd control, scene cordons and lighting, basic first aid, salvage, communications and logistics, and even catering
