GRAHAM Sheedy, who served as fire chief from 1960 till 1985, stands beside the Te Kūiti fire siren, at the brigade headquarters in Taupiri Street
WHY does the Te Kūiti fire siren sound at 5pm?
The World War II era machine is a left-over from a more formal time when its wailing sound signalled “home time” at the end of their working day, but nobody seems to know why the tradition started.
Fire chief Phil New said the siren had sounded automatically at 5pm on most days during his 37 years in the role.
When a power surge damaged the mechanism in 2015, Phil received numerous calls from people who wanted it repaired. But for more details on its history, Phil suggested we call his predecessor Graham Sheedy.
Graham, who served as brigade chief from 1960 till 1985, said businesses in town once uniformly closed at 5pm.
“I’m unsure why many Te Kūiti people still want an audible reminder that it was knock-off time. It was going off at 5pm when I joined the fire brigade way back in 1960.
“At one stage there were moves to stop it but that just caused an outcry.”
However, birds had been known to try to build nests in the mechanism.
“So at least spinning it once a day deters them from putting leaves and rubbish down inside. Benneydale had a problem with this at one point. The mechanism is simple, just one disc spinning inside another, with holes set around it. The inside disc spins past the holes, and that’s what makes the noise.”
He favours retaining the tradition.
“I think in Ōtorohanga at one point somebody petitioned to stop activating their siren following fire calls. But though fire fighters have pagers, these may fail sometimes. At least with the public siren sounding there’s a reliable way of summoning brigade members.”
When somebody dialled 111, the call went through to one of three national call centres, located in either Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch.
A call centre operator at one of these then activated the town’s siren remotely, and – via a microphone at the station – they could even hear it starting up. “It’s a pretty reliable arrangement and people here seem to appreciate hearing it. “The advantage for those who phone in an incident is that the siren reassures them that help is on the way.”
