Just a short distance from the scene of the blaze, Defence Minister Judith Collins has shared her condolences in the wake of a fire that killed at 16-year-old girl at a military camp in Canterbury earlier this week.
Collins was at Burnham Military Camp this morning to announce a $571 million package for the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) in the upcoming Budget, aimed at improving servicepeople’s pay and improving defence equipment and infrastructure.
A 16-year-old girl died in a fire at defence housing just outside the base’s perimeter fencing early on Wednesday.
Three other people were injured in the blaze.
Before her announcement today, Collins said: “I just want to acknowledge the terrible tragedy that occurred here early on Wednesday morning and I think we all feel very deeply for the family and the 16-year-old girl who has died, and for all of those affected.”
A Givealittle page has been set up for the girl’s family.
“I want to thank Defence very much for wrapping around all of those involved, as is our way in the Defence Force,” Collins said.
Later, a reporter asked Collins about the Burnham Military Fire Station, which was not staffed at the time of the fire. It was the nearest station to the site of the blaze but the first crew that could reach the scene was from Rolleston.
The Defence Force told RNZ the military station had been operating at reduced capacity since January, “in part due to the need to provide staff respite and because of low emergency responder staffing levels”.
Collins said: “It’s actually really hard for Defence, they’ve been suffering this massive attrition, basically staffing drops — and the engineers, the firefighters, they were also affected by this.
“Defence made a decision [at the] end of last year that they were going to have to, because they’ve got Rolleston fire service just down the road, that they would work with Rolleston on this.”
“That’s one of the problems we have,” she added. “It is a terrible tragedy and, as we look at this, you know, Defence, the army, have all been hugely affected by attrition which is why, the attrition, it’s so important that we deal to it.”