Calls so far in 2025: 34.

An animal rescue was one of the 14 calls in the last fortnight. A large dog had become trapped in a soak hole. The dog was frightened, distressed and aggressive and Te Puke Vets were asked to come and sedate her before she could be removed from the hole.

We have also had calls to three motor vehicle crashes and two medical calls to assist St John. There was a call resulting from smoke coming from a streetlamp and two vegetation fires. One of these was a significant fire at Mangatawa to which our tanker responded. Five false alarms rounded out the calls during the past fortnight.

Last week we used our new shed at our training when we practised with some of the rescue gear we don’t use all that often.

We used our airbag to raise our vintage fire truck, using cribbing to keep it safe.

An airbag uses a compressed breathing apparatus air cylinder to inflate and can lift heavy items – ours can lift up to 20 tonnes.

Our Holmatro V struts enable us to stabilise a vehicle on its side by anchoring to the chassis, with struts angled out to the ground, secured by ratchet load straps.

This creates a stable triangle to ensure the vehicle can’t roll further while we are working to remove trapped patients.

We also used our Turfur, which is a ratchet cable winch on a hand lever capable of pulling heavy loads slowly and carefully as required.

Since late November we have been posting a fortnightly Meet the crew Monday post on our Facebook page to let our community get to know a little more about our firefighters, who give up their valuable time to help our community.

Next time you hear our siren, please spare a thought for these people who don’t just listen to it, they stop whatever they are doing to help somebody in need.

Check out the Brigade Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Te.Puke.Fire.Brigade