Paid firefighters across the country plan four separate 10-hour walkouts, beginning on Friday 27 November, unless the dispute between their union and Fire and Emergency New Zealand is settled first.

The New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union said on Wednesday that 99 per cent of members who voted had rejected the agency's latest pay offer, and 88 per cent had backed 10-hour strikes to be held between 25 November and 25 December. The union said it had held 25 meetings over three weeks, stretching from Whangārei to Invercargill, with about 70 per cent of eligible members attending.

RNZ reported the stoppages would run from 1pm to 11pm, once a week, with members in 19 towns and cities striking at the same time. Invercargill is the only Southland station crewed by career firefighters around the clock; the rest of the region, from Bluff to Te Anau, relies on volunteer brigades.

Fire and Emergency responded within hours. National commander Megan Stiffler said the planned action amounted to an "extreme risk" for the public and might end in deaths. Volunteers would still turn out, she said, but they could not replicate the specialist skills, equipment and coverage of paid crews.

The agency said it had asked the union to reconsider and had applied to the Employment Relations Authority for urgent facilitation. It described the union's most recent claim, an 18.5 per cent rise over two years, as unrealistic, and said its own offer of 2.5 per cent in the first year and 2.2 per cent in the second was in line with other public sector settlements.

The union disputes that framing. National secretary Wattie Watson told RNZ that members' pay had been frozen since July 2023 and that nobody wanted to strike; they were doing so, she said, with a "heavy heart". She added that the strikes could be called off if the government formed after Saturday's election put the right people, and some funding, into the room.

The union has already staged 72 one-hour strikes since October 2025, including in Dunedin, and it says that during a 10-hour stoppage there would be no career firefighters, 111 call-takers or dispatchers on duty from its membership.

During earlier strikes Fire and Emergency arranged for police to answer 111 fire calls on its behalf, with its own staff continuing to triage and dispatch trucks. The agency said at the time that response times could be slower in affected areas because volunteer crews might have to travel from the next nearest station, and that lower-priority jobs such as alarm activations with no sign of fire, small rubbish fires and animal rescues might not be attended.

Fire and Emergency said more detail about the timing, locations and operational effect of the 10-hour strikes would be released in due course.

For Southland the stakes are practical. Invercargill's career crews cover the city and back up volunteer brigades at larger incidents such as last month's Centre Hill high-country fire. If a strike goes ahead, Fire and Emergency's standing advice is to evacuate early if there is a fire, stay out, and then call 111.