The Southern Fire Service has contingency measures in place if a volunteer brigade is unable to muster a crew to attend an emergency callout.
The Fire Service responds to 75,000 incidents a year, and when a volunteer fire brigade is unable to muster a full crew, an appliance from a nearby station is always substituted for it.
In about 1.3% of calls to the Fire Service, an appliance was unable to attend because of a crew shortage but the call would be answered by a nearby brigade or career station.
Fire Service Southern Region Commander Stu Rooney said contingencies were in place for three volunteer brigades in Otago - Waitati, Brighton, and Kaka Point - because of a "daytime turnout problem".
If a call was made for these stations from 8am-5pm Mondays to Fridays, another appliance would be sent in case they could not muster a crew. It would be turned back if they could attend.
"For those areas where we have a known problem, we enhance the initial turnout so we don't have a problem," he said.
"There are no incidences where we won't go."
Problem areas were usually those close to a town or city, as people tended to leave those areas for work during the day, "but they are there at night and they are there in the weekends".
There had never been an instance of no-one turning up for a callout, and there were contingencies in place if the volunteer brigade was short-crewed, or lacked a trained driver.
"We have all sorts of backstop mechanisms that allows a truck to respond.
"We have never had to investigate a non-response."
In the past, delays had been caused by volunteer brigades waiting for a full crew, but for incidents such as vehicle crashes or structure fires, crews "always go, but ask for the full turnout from other stations".
The Southern Region differed from the regions, in that crews advised the Fire Service communications centre about the make-up of the crew.
Those brigades struggling to attract volunteers were looking across the community, and with about 10% women volunteers and "it not just a male-dominated organisation any longer".
Anyone interested in becoming a volunteer firefighter should contact their local brigade.
