Selwyn Times: January 27, 2021

Selwyn Times Wednesday January 27 2021
10
OUR PEOPLE – DAVE BERRY
From dealing with disasters to
Dave Berry is Fire
and Emergency New
Zealand Canterbury
area commander. He
is based at Rolleston
where he oversees
25 urban volunteer
brigades comprising
about 650 volunteers.
He is also team leader
of FENZ’s Southern
Urban Search and
Rescue team. Susan
Sandys spoke to him
about his roles
How long have you been in
these two FENZ roles, and
what do you like about doing
them?
Seven years now . . . it’s more
about the helping of the people
and the variety of the work.
There’s a lot of administration
and everything as the area
commander but also I’m in a
response role, so you could be
at any incident, any day of the
week, we maintain an on call
roster to back up our volunteers.
What was the last big incident
you went to?
There’s numerous, scrub
fires, anything more than four
fire trucks (responding at any
one time) or three volunteer
fire brigades working together,
I get notified. It’s part of my
function as commander. But
if there’s a house fire reported,
we’re expected to go . . . fatalities,
anything like that, it’s for the
welfare of our people too. And
if there’s a messy motor vehicle
accident, then I go.
Have you had any major
incidents this year yet?
No, it’s been very quiet, it’s
very good, the rain has helped
us.
What are some of the biggest
incidents you have been to over
the years?
Pike River, Christchurch
earthquake, Kaikoura
earthquake, Port Hills. I flew
to Japan for the tsunami after
the Christchurch earthquake
(as part of the New Zealand
response). We responded to
the Christchurch earthquake,
and we were the only team ever
to deploy to our own disaster
and then deploy to another
disaster, so we did 20 days in
Christchurch and then went to
Japan for 10 days.
VERSATILE: Berry, as USAR hazmat officer, contended with
wide levels of destruction, along with ice and snow, for the
Japanese tsunami rescue response.
What did your response in
Japan involve?
Search and rescue, well
basically search and recovery, by
that stage there were no rescues
to be done. It would have been
probably two days (after the
tsunami when we arrived). It
was an eye opener, because the
damage that they (tsunamis) can
do. So when we got there, it was
quite destructive. We moved
from Christchurch in February,
and went to Japan where it
was minus 17 deg C, snow and
ice. I was hazmat (hazardous
materials) officer at USAR at the
time. I went over as the hazmat
officer, because of the concern
around radiation, monitoring for
nuclear fallout and all that sort
of stuff.
That sounds crazy, being at
something so destructive as the
earthquake and then something
DEDICATED:
FENZ Canterbury
area commander
Dave Berry
has moved up
the ranks after
joining as a
volunteer more
than 30 years
ago.
PHOTO: SUSAN
SANDYS
so destructive as the tsunami.
Can you describe what that was
like?
You have your family back
home. We had to make sure they
were going all good before we
left. There was aftershocks and
everything here in Christchurch
as we were leaving, so we were
still concerned for them. We put
in some big hours, so it was quite
exhausting.
Was the Christchurch
earthquake experience
similar to that of being in
Japan?
I was off duty (in my role at
the time that was senior station
officer at Christchurch metro
brigade). I went in as the USAR
hazmat officer, but I ended up at
the CTV building, about three
o’clock that afternoon, so we
were doing full-on rescues, and
we rescued eight people.
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