Mr Job'sworth

Yesterday, our neighbour up the front decided to burn off a massvie pile of branches he'd trimmed off our shared driveway. He's a volunteer fireman and had obtained a permit. As we were coming back from the market, he said if we'd like to collect all the branches we'd cut off the other side of the driveway (a big cypress sort of thing) and throw them over the fence, he'd burn them too.

Great!

So we came home, got changed and went back up the driveway with the wheel barrow. Kim was pruning some leftovers and was joined by a bloke from over the road with rachet pruners. He helped Kim finish it off, had a chat and left.... not long after that, a car turns up and some bloke yells out to Kim to put the fire out. There was a fire sticker in the windscreen so according to the neighbour, he must have been a volunteer firefighter to have that sticker in the window. Kim approached the car and he went off at her, telling her to put the fire out, there's a total fire ban starting tomorrow......

Kim told him it wasn't her fire and that the owner had a fire permit and maybe he should talk to him. This bloke wouldn't look at her but got very aggressive and kept telling her to put the fire out. She asked him if he'd like to talk to the owner, he repeated, put the fire out. Then he informed her if she didn't put the fire out, he'd call the fire brigade. She told him to go right ahead.

He drove off and Kim walked back up the driveway and told the neighbour, who was attending the fire, what had happened... while she was doing that, his beeper went off. He was being called to his own fire!!!

Well, two appliances turned up, did a U turn and left again.... they HAD to come out because they were called out but apart from that, well.... everything was legal, there was no danger at all. So two appliances and the teams involved came out for nothing, all because this job'sworth wouldn't talk to the permit holder or even listen.
They might have been needed somewhere else for goodness sake! This bloke was a time waster. I wish he was charged for wasting their time!

This particular neighbour is a responsible chap, he's not stupid and him and his wife have done a lot to their property. He did all the right things to burn off the branches and made sure the wind was blowing away from the neighbours, he also went and talked to the neighbours before he light the fire. They were all fine with it.

Ha ha.. his wife was out with one of their horses and may have had a word or two with him about the slight fog in their house from the smoke when she got home though.....

I just couldn't believe this bloke and his attitude. Kim said he was rude and arrogant. The fact he refused to get out of his car or even look at her was weird. Why should she put out a fire that wasn't hers? Why wouldn't he even talk to the permit holder? Jumped up little man!

Yakut

I should add, that the neighbour wasn't burning off the whole lot at once, he'd burnt down one pile and was adding branches to it from another pile slowly and letting them burn down before adding more.

Yakut

Sad story in relation to the fire "expert" that wouldn't get out of his car.
Total fire ban starting tomorrow is only effective tomorrow.

Some fellow in Raglan, a few years ago, reported a fire accross the harbour after seeing smoke in the distance. 40mins plus each way for the firefighters to find a well controlled incinerator fire being used and attended to by the property owner.[:0]

The person did the right thing by driving to see what was making the smoke and then it all went downhill from there.

Did the neighbour recognise the car's description?

He wasn't sure, there are two fire stations, Tuakau and Mercer and our neighbour doesn't know all the members of the fire station he's not a member of.

Kim checked out the council information page on their web site and the 'ban' hadn't changed from being a confined fire (incinerator).... but he DID have a permit so he was permitted to have an open fire.

If someone makes a bogus call to the police, they get charged with wasting police time... or warned at least. These fire fighters may well have been needed at a real emergency, accident or fire and wouldn't have been available cos they were attending this idiots call out.

One of the fire fighters got out of the truck, spoke to the neighbour and said "You've got a permit for this haven't you!" not some much a question as a statement. He'd talked it over with his fire fighting colleagues... as one tends to do with people they see often, work colleagues etc so they knew he'd been in and got a permit.

The neighbour had a bit of a laugh.... when he got the page saying he was being called out, a sort of 'aww shit roll your eyes this is going to waste everyones time' sort of laugh.

He had the hose and a shovel and was keeping things very neat and tidy during the burn off. Nothing was near enough to the fire to create a hazard.

Like I said, he's one of the most sensible neighbours we have. Unlike the previous owner of that place..... there was a reason he had the nickname of 'Richard Cranium'. I dunno, these jumped up little people with a 'badge'. Some people just can't cope with being 'in uniform' doesn't matter what the uniform is they all of a sudden get officious and arrogant, whatever power they have suddenly goes to their head.

I just hope he gets his butt verbally whipped.

Yakut

We had this same sort of thing happen a few years back when we did some burnoffs:

- Waited until June so the seasonal fire danger was pretty much over
- Obtained a Fire Permit
- Phoned the senior firefighter at the local brigade each afternoon before we started the burnoff to advise what we were going to do
- Lit the fires and watched closely with a water tank, hose and fire pump at the ready

But still the local Fire Brigade insisted on coming out, and then later in the evening, the Fire Chief abused me because he was getting so many phone calls at home after hours.

We did everythiing by the book and made courtesy phone calls to the person who needed to know, but still got abused for our trouble. It seems that you just can't win with officialdom like this [!]

What I don't understand with these stories is why the Fire Service can't check whether the person having the Fire has a permit or not before leaving the Station.

Would it not make sense for the local Council Fire officer ( I believe Franklin only has one) to send out a list each week to the Fire Service with the permit holder's home phone and mobile number. If they get a call - make a call to see if there IS a problem?

The only issue I have is how it is handled and whether the permit holder is complying with what was agreed. Perhaps I answered my own question?

DiDi;300062 wrote: What I don't understand with these stories is why the Fire Service can't check whether the person having the Fire has a permit or not before leaving the Station.

Would it not make sense for the local Council Fire officer ( I believe Franklin only has one) to send out a list each week to the Fire Service with the permit holder's home phone and mobile number. If they get a call - make a call to see if there IS a problem?

As I understand it (from a conversation with one of the local firefighters), if the Fire Service receives a 111 call, they must attend, regardless of whether there is a problem or not.

From my perspective, it seems like a tremendous waste of time and resources.

When there was a large amount of land clearing going on around here - old forestry blocks being turned in to dairy farms, the poor blighters burning the residues would put large signs on the road sides saying 'controlled burn'. Being next to SH1, and hearing these tales, I can now understand why they felt the need.
Still see similar signs from arable farmers burning stubble at times.
Maybe 'controlled burn, have permit' should be added

by sheer chance Yakut, was the vehicle a goldish SUV?

I had a burn off a few weeks back during drizzle moments, and as our bit is some 400m's from the road, noticed a goldish SUV (xtrail?) going slowly up and down our road further along...

Didn't hear anything of it, but noticed the vehicle all the same as we are on a dead end road and know the majority of vehicles both up and down. This wasn't one of them....

No, dark blue. Not sure what was going on tonight.... the fire engine was out opposite the end of our driveway, no sirens or anything, no fire to put out... I know they quite often have fire drills at the truck stop, seem to squirt water at each other and apart from learning, looks like they have a great time.

The neighbour lives at the end of the driveway, on the street so maybe they had Mr I'm-telling-on-you Job'sworth with them and were teaching him the difference between an uncontrolled blaze and a permitted, well controlled fire and possibly, how to communicate with permit holders?:rolleyes:

Yakut

In Kapiti, one of the conditions of the Rural Fire Permits is to ring the Wellington Fire Control centre before getting started.

I always to this, and advise location and timing of the fire. Hopefully it prevents a callout by a drive-by observer.

It's a pity this guy was such a pain, Yakut, but as for other comments on here about how the fire service operates...I think I'd rather stick with the precautionary principle and have every call followed up! [] Better safe than sorry.

Huh...can top that.

We had a neighbour asks us about fire permits as we have a 'permanent' one (ie every 6 months we get it renewed - so we always have a permit). Anyway another neighbour further down our road had told this particular neighbour that there was no need to get a permit to burn off piles of branches etc. [:0][:0] I almost choked! I couldn't bl**dy well believe it...no permit and burns were left to burn out overnight. I explained what the situation was with permits (ie no matter who you are or what you are burning you need a permit) and that it was also desirable to have liability insaurance (what's that, was her question:rolleyes::rolleyes: - this lady owns expensive ponies/horses....that we constantly have to put back in the paddocks when we find them on the road because her and her kids have no idea of what a gate is, or how to shut one [}]:rolleyes:).

Anyway to cut a long story short, the neighbour who believes that there is no need to have fire permits (or liability insaurance) is a cop. I sometimes feel like striking up a conversation along the lines off: " gun license - whats that??", "car license/wof/rego- whats that??", "do I need one, why, what could go wrong???"

Some useful info for Canterbury people on rural fires can be found here:
ecan.govt.nz/advice/your-land/outdoor-bu...s/Pages/Default.aspx
Also, it is worth knowing about restrictions on fires within 1km of DOC land:
www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/threats-and-impacts/fire/