Station operator Mike Taylor said the city’s front-running appliance went off the run last week because of a leaking coolant system.
"Many of the components turned out to be perished and brittle.
"It’s not a major job, but as a result, we are pushed on to one of our spare appliances which is 30 years old.
"These relief appliances are well past their sell-by date and are used relatively frequently as our front-running appliances have regular maintenance or breakdowns."
Mr Taylor said it was potentially a major safety issue and something that was constantly being raised to the head office of Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz).
"It seems like Dunedin is the poor cousin sometimes.
"We feel like we’ve been ignored for a long time."
"Fenz senior management have refused to replace or renew these appliances and as a result, we now have a 30-year-old appliance and a 38-year-old ladder with an oil leak as our responding appliances covering Dunedin city."
Newer equipment was essential for quicker response times, he said.
"We’re not the only ones in this predicament. We’ve heard similar stories around the country.
"But we would like to see something done to address this, rather than just wait for the trickle-down of newer equipment over a matter of years."
A Fenz spokeswoman said there were 124 firetrucks across the Otago region.
"The age of these trucks ranges from one year old to over 30 years old. Dunedin will receive a new aerial truck later this year and other replacement vehicles are planned for the Otago region’s older fleet."
All of Fenz’s vehicles were regularly maintained, safe, warranted and legally certified, she said.
"The age of a vehicle does not determine its effectiveness at an incident.
"The officers who lead our emergency responses are trained to be agile using the resources available to respond to changing and multiple incidents.
"We trust our officers to make the right tactical decisions using the resources available to them."
Nationally, Fenz managed a fleet of 1300 firefighting trucks deployed across over 620 fire station sites.
Of the 1300 trucks, 72.5% of the fleet was within the target asset life of 20 or 25 years.
"The age of our trucks reflects deferred replacements by our predecessor organisations; this has created a fleet management challenge which we are working to address quickly within our available funds."
She said there were 78 trucks on order, and that Fenz typically spent over $20 million annually on new firefighting trucks and vehicles.
