FIRE AUXILIARY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20489, 25 February 1941, Page 5

FIRE AUXILIARY

TRAINING IN GISBORNE ADDITIONAL APPLIANCES COST MAY BE £2500 FIRE BOARD TO ACT The Gisborne Emergency Precautions Service Committee at a general meeting last evening ■ decided to appoint the Gisborne Fire Board as its fire committee, in place of the committee which already had done a considerable amount of work in organising emergency activities.

The organisation heard with some surprise of the new national scheme for training fire auxiliaries in the town, and the responsibilities which would devolve upon the Emergency Precautions Service Committee for additional equipment required for the auxiliaries.

Mr. B. S. Bree reported on the enrolment and training of auxiliary fire-fighters. He said it was proposed that in each centre the fire bogre should act as the fire committee of the emergency precautions service, but that the Emergency Precautions Service Committee should arrange through local authorities to provide the necessary plant. The cost oi equipment, he said, would be about £2500, of which one-quarter would be found by the insurance companies. The chairman, Colonel R. F. Gambrill. pointed out that the fire superintendent already had been appointed fire controller for emergency precautions service purposes. , Air. Bree said that the fire superintendent had his own duties to attend to, and the fire board was the body which the Government regarded as the authority which should handle the organisation of fire-fighting auxiliaries. Mr. O. G. Thornton said that the new proposals took away from the emergency precautions service everything but the responsibility for making the scheme work. Nc Better Hands The chairman’s view was that the fire-fighting could not be placed in better hands than those of the fire board. The difficulty was in seeing what the emergency precautions service could do to aid the board, beyond handing on its recommendations to the local authorities in respect of additional plant ordered.

The trouble seemed to arise out of the endeavour of the Government to preserve the appearance of local democratic control, while actually placing power in the hands of a bureaucrat in Wellington, continued the chairman If all went well, the bureaucrat would get the credit, but if anything went wrong, it was the local emergency precautions service which would take the blame, and not the bureaucrat. There was little use in the members of the committee attending meetings on Hot nights and trying to solve difficulties of local emergency precautions services, if the Government departments were going to come in and hand over control to other organisations, he added. He thought that the committee should hand the responsibility to the Gisborne Fire Board, and let it deal directly with the local body with regard to additional equipment. After further discussion, it was agreed that the standing fire committee of the emergency precautions service should resign and that a new lire committee be set up, consisting of Mr. B. S. Bree, with members of the Gisborne Fire Board and the superintendent. Mix J. Kano.