In June 2026, the NZPFU raised serious health and safety concerns detailing critical risk areas with the City Rail Link (CRL), with FENZ and with Auckland City Council.
The risks were serious in nature and significant in the breadth and magnitude.
Three months out from the proposed commissioning of the CRL, the Union was gravely concerned that FENZ had failed to develop and implement necessary emergency operating procedures and training and had not tested critical communications. The NZPFU strongly believed that without immediate and dedicated intervention the failures would put the public and responding firefighters at risk of serious harm, not only due to the nature of the incident but also due to these critical deficiencies.
The Union proposed urgent action recommending a dedicated group of personnel, including Subject Matter Experts, be tasked with undertaking the necessary preparations. Had FENZ refused, the NZPFU would have taken all action available including under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.
The New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union (NZPFU) can now be proud of the significant work undertaken by its members to strengthen firefighter and public safety ahead of the City Rail Link becoming operational.
Over the last eight weeks, NZPFU members have worked alongside Fire and Emergency New Zealand, City Rail Link, Auckland Transport and partner agencies to turn identified operational risks into practical, tested response capability. This has required a considerable commitment from frontline firefighters, officers and specialist personnel, with hundreds of hours invested in operational planning, testing, training and exercising.
Importantly, this work has not been developed in isolation. NZPFU members with international operational experience, together with members who have travelled overseas specifically to engage with partner fire and emergency services, have brought international lessons, systems and operational thinking back to New Zealand. Throughout the programme, NZPFU members relied heavily on relationships with experienced international fire and emergency partners to peer-review, challenge and independently moderate our thinking and operational approach.
That experience has helped shape how we approach the unique challenges of underground rail incidents — including fire attack, Breathing Apparatus operations, command and control, communications, access and egress, water supplies, rescue, evacuation, smoke management and mass-casualty operations. That external scrutiny has been important. Auckland does not need to learn every lesson for the first time during a real emergency. Where established international agencies have decades of experience operating in complex underground transport environments, we should learn from them, test those lessons against the New Zealand environment and adapt them appropriately.
The work undertaken locally has included:
- strengthening underground emergency communications
- reviewing firefighting water supplies, hydrants and riser systems
- developing fire, rescue, hazardous materials and mass-casualty response procedures
- improving emergency access and operational intelligence
- strengthening Breathing Apparatus capability for extended underground operations
- developing firefighter, officer and specialist training
- improving rescue, evacuation and casualty-management arrangements
- strengthening command, control and multi-agency interoperability
- testing the combined capability through a major third-alarm, multi-agency commissioning exercise involving more than 100 participants.
The final commissioning exercise provided an opportunity to stress-test these systems, procedures and operational arrangements in a realistic underground emergency environment.
For the NZPFU, this represents a significant operational-readiness milestone.
Our members identified concerns because frontline firefighters understood the risks. They then committed themselves to being part of the solution.
Over the last eight weeks, an extraordinary amount of work has been delivered — combining frontline operational experience, international expertise, technical development, practical testing and independent peer review to significantly strengthen New Zealand’s capability to respond to an emergency within the CRL.
The NZPFU is extremely proud of the professionalism, technical expertise and commitment shown by its members throughout this process.
We also acknowledge Fire and Emergency New Zealand, City Rail Link, Auckland Transport, our supporting agencies and our international fire and emergency partners whose willingness to share their experience, challenge our thinking and review our work has helped get this capability across the line.
This work does not finish with commissioning. CRL will require continued training, exercising, testing, international engagement and refinement as the network becomes operational.
But the achievement of the last eight weeks demonstrates something important:
When firefighters are empowered to identify operational risk, draw on international experience and work collaboratively to develop and test the solution, we can deliver safer and stronger outcomes for firefighters and the communities we protect.
