Fires are fought under rapidly changing circumstances where decisions need to be made and communicated quickly.

The Fire Service routinely carries out operational audits are carried out to see if there are any areas of our emergency response where, with all the benefits of hindsight and careful review, we could find areas for improvement in the future. 

Our audit on the fatal fire at Rangiora on 20 September fire has been completed but has yet to be circulated to relevant parties and then finalised.

There has been comment in some Canterbury news media about the time it took for the Fire Service to respond and the time it took to bring out the elderly woman occupant.

Our audit has found the volunteer firefighters were well trained, well resourced and they performed well under the circumstances.

The brigade arrived five minutes after the 111 call and were told by the passer-by who had rescued the elderly man that the man's wife was in the loung

Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus carefully searched this large, dark, smoke-filled room, for 10-12 minutes. When they were certain that she wasn’t there, they then began searching adjoining rooms.   When the woman was found in a bedroom, the firefighters’ air supply warning was sounding.  They checked her, found no signs of life and retreated so that another two firefighters could come in with fresh breathing apparatus to carry her out. 

It is estimated that about five to eight minutes elapsed from the time the woman was found to the time she was carried outside – by this time the heat and smoke was dissipating and this enabled fire fighters to negotiate a clear path to extricate the woman from the house and pass her to ambulance officers.