A substantial storm hit Wellington late yesterday and at one stage almost every NZFS Appliance from Upper Hutt South, was on the road, responding to calls of lines and trees down, roofs lifting and awnings flying. The Hutt Valley was of course not excepted, and before long a request for support from the Hutt Valley Fire Police was received from the crew of Avalon 414, attending a collapsed power pole.

It's not easy to tell from this angle, but the power lines attached to this pole are actually leaning on the house, and in fact providing support for the pole which has clean-broken near its base.

Rimutaka 4926 and 4928 responded, along with members from the duty crew, allowing Avalon's truck to respond to other callouts in the valley. (Indeed, AVAL414 responded 7 times in just over 2 and a half hours.)

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RIMU4928 with both roadblock and footpath-block in place.

Members of HVFP attended for nearly 3 hours, providing road closures and scene security, liasing with local residents and assisting the Power Company and Tree Contractor while a new pole was placed next to the old one and power was restored to local houses affected. (The temporary repair involves attaching the old pole (with lines connected) next to a new one for support, until a permanent repair can be affected (relocating the lines from one pole to the other).

Members travelling to and from this call couldn't help but notice the weather-related destruction around the Valley, with many trees having lost limbs that were to be found littered across footpaths and roads. The 'Southerly Buster' petered out by mid/late evening (as it made its way north.)

Hutt Valley Fire Police were paged very early on 3 March to provide AquaVac's for a Salvage task at a bakery in Taita. An ajoining ATM had caught fire and water had subsequently found its way - in some volume - into the floor of the Bakery.
Members of the Unit made short work of the water.

Photos by FP Key:

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No doubt most New Zealanders are aware of the Tsunami Alert that we were under for much of Sunday 28 February after the major Major Earthquake off the coast of Chile.

A mishap involving a sprinkler head within a storage facility at Trentham Army Camp had the Hutt Valley Fire Police requested to respond with Aquavacs and salvage equipment. RIMU4926 and 4928 turned out and spent about 90 minutes at work with Acquavacs and Squeegies, assisting firefighters from Rimutaka, Silverstream and Trentham stations.

Hutt Valley Fire Police were amongst the resources from all across the region who were called to assist at a massive Scrub Fire in Titahi Bay, Porirua. Stuff.co.nz has impressive photography.

Our friends at Wellington Fire Support were responded to the call when a Third Alarm was transmitted. A long duration incident, HVFP and also Wainuiomata's Fire Police provided relief manpower for Wellington Fire Support and assisted with traffic management.

A very windy Saturday 13 February saw the Hutt Valley Fire Police requested to provide scene protection for a power pole collapse in Ebdentown, Upper Hutt.

The Unit provided traffic control and scene protection until the Power Company and a commercial traffic management firm could provide relief; time on scene was around 2 hours.

Members observed that the adjacent house was very lucky!!

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Hutt Valley Fire Police were amongst those responded to assist with the discovery of potentially dangerous chemicals at an address in Stokes Valley this afternoon.

Members assisted with evacuations of neighbouring properties while the NZ Police, NZ Fire Service and the NZ Army Explosives Ordnance Disposal rendered the scene safe.

Stokes Valley residents may have heard a loud 'bang' from the vicinity of Delaney Park; this was a deliberate detonation by the guys from EOD.

Hutt Valley Fire Police, along with the NZ Police, maintained a safety perimeter to keep members of the public away from the danger zone.

There's a couple more images after the jump.

Tuesday 19th of January saw a Second Alarm transmitted for a Garage fire in Woburn. The fire was reported as well involved and had started to spread to the neighbouring house when it was brought under control.

Members of Hutt Valley Fire Police assisted crews from Hutt, Seaview, Avalon and Johnsonville stations with traffic management and light refreshments.

At about lunchtime today the pagers of HVFP members lit up with another activation; this for Salvage in central Lower Hutt, and our first activation for our Salvage capability.

RIMU4926 and 4928 responded to the BCITO Offices (formerly the Timezone Gaming Arcade) on High Street where a water pipe that was being worked on had through a combination of circumstances, 'let go' of a lot of water.

Firefighters from Hutt, Seaview and Avalon responded; they helped with the initial Salvage work (saving papers and other equipment from water damage) and the Fire Police Unit with it's AquaVac's were able to extract the majority of the water that had damaged a storage area and part of an open-plan office space.

SSO Ackroyd gets his 'hands dirty' with the AquaVac.

This turned out to be an excellent 'commissioning' for our Salvage role in the Valley, and our ability to provide Salvage for the Valley should improve response times for Salvage needs in the Valley; the next nearest Salvage capability is based at Kilbirnie with our friends from Wellington Fire Support.