Old flames: Kāinga Ora partnership with Fire and Emergency NZ going strong

This month marks five years since Kāinga Ora and Fire and Emergency developed a partnership agreement, more formally known as a ‘Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU. It guides how both agencies will work closely and collaboratively on ways to keep our customers and homes safe from fire.

Grant McNeil, Manager Compliance at Kāinga Ora explains why the partnership is so important.

“Kāinga Ora and Fire and Emergency share the same goals – to do whatever we can to prevent house fires occurring in the first place, and to reduce harm to people and property when fires do occur. Our partnership means we work closely on important topics from fire safety design in Kāinga Ora homes and complexes, to risk reduction activities and helpful resources for our customers, through to supporting each other to investigate fires that do happen. It’s an important relationship.”

Pete Gallagher, Risk Reduction and Investigations Manager at Fire and Emergency New Zealand, echoes this.

“Over the last five years we’ve really grown our understanding of the impact a fire can have on smaller communities and how the design of housing developments can impact the work of Fire and Emergency in emergencies. This kind of collaboration can speed up our response and recovery operations and literally save lives,” says Pete.

Manaakitanga - people at the heart

Earlier this year, staff from Kāinga Ora, Fire and Emergency and engineering firm Beca met to discuss the connections between housing design, fire risk and emergency response.

“As urban intensification increases, collaboration across government agencies, local government and Fire and Emergency is vital,” says Grant. “Together we can develop better functioning, safer urban environments.”

“The workshop really underscored the importance of collaboration and innovation in addressing fire safety challenges. Getting together in the same room means we can share scenarios, research, current work and goals, with real and meaningful outcomes.”

Delivering the hard messages

Engaging with communities and stakeholders to raise awareness about fire safety is something both organisations are committed to.

Unattended cooking is the number one cause of fire in our homes, and both Kāinga Ora and Fire and Emergency are keen to see that declining.

Grant says education, informed by research on why these types of fires happen, is the key.

“We can help our customers understand that if they forget about what’s on the stovetop even for a few minutes, it could change their lives forever, or worse. That’s a hard-line message, but a vital one.”

Fire and Emergency branded messaging is shared regularly in the Kāinga Ora customer newsletter, Close to Home, and Fire and Emergency education tools are shared through other channels, too. One example is the ‘Fast Fire Facts(external link)’ – a series of short 30 second videos covering everything from how to use a fire extinguisher to the risk of lint build-up in your home dryer.

Fast fire facts:

• Don’t drink and fry
• Don’t get too close to your heater
• Don’t get distracted cooking
• Don’t leave kids unattended while cooking
• Check your fire alarms

To gauge general understanding of fire risk among our customers, Kāinga Ora is currently undertaking research with those who have experienced house fires.

“By hearing our customers’ stories, what caused them to become distracted in the moment, and how they responded when fire took hold, will help us understand how we can reduce the prevalence of fires in our homes. This will help inform our future fire prevention work and will help Fire and Emergency too.”