Did you know…unattended frying pans have been the largest cause of house fires over the last ten years, causing 25 per cent of all fires in New Zealand homes.  Of the 954 house fires in Auckland last year, unattended cooking caused 262 of them.  The most vulnerable are the young, the elderly, and the disabled.

The NZ Fire Service is launching a hard-hitting TV campaign to shock people into realising the deadly consequences of leaving cooking unattended.  It’s moving away from the traditional friendly firefighters giving safety advice to try and stamp out peoples ‘it won’t happen to me’ attitude to fire safety.

What to do if a pan catches fire:

-      Never throw water on it

-      Never try to carry it outside

-      Turn off power/gas at stove/mains

-      Wet a tea towel and place it over the pan, or use a large flat object to starve the fire of oxygen

-      If the fire looks fierce, just get out and call 111 immediately

If you are interested in finding out more about the current TV campaign, or anything else relating to the NZ Fire Service or fire safety in general, the New Zealand Fire Service runs a great website that is crammed full of interesting and very useful information…www.fire.org.nz

In Brigade news this month, the Brigade competed in the NZ Fire Service National 7-a-side Football Tournament in Palmerston North and came a very credible 11^th.  For a bunch of ‘hacks’ that haven’t played much football, this was a great result...“at least we didn’t come last” the team were quoted as saying!!

All Brigade members recently completed a First Aid refresher course.  This course is undertaken bi-annually to maintain a high level of knowledge and experience with the equipment we carry on the appliance for medical calls.

And congratulations to Scott Rees who passed his Pump Operator course and is now fully qualified to take charge of pump operations at calls.  On a job, pump operators are key to the getting the right amount of water, at the right pressure, at the right time so that at the end of the branch, firefighters are safe to work and extinguish fires.

Concluding word…one man's beard is on fire, and another man warms his hands on it. (Kashmiri culture proverb).

Firefighter Isabelle LARDEUX-GILLOUX