Membership of a Facebook group about emergency incidents has skyrocketed to more than 11,000.
Jacob Paul Burt, known as Paul, established the NZ Emergency Group in November last year.
The 25-year-old is helped by fellow enthusiast Levi Appleton-Day, 15, in photographing and videoing incidents.
The pair both live in Ashburton, so the group features many a first-person report from the town and its surrounding areas.
Paul and Levi are keen citizen journalists, who always have their phones at the ready.
They will spend hours outside the Ashburton Fire Station, waiting for the siren to go off.
They like to capture footage of the fire trucks leaving under lights and sirens.
And when they are not at the fire station, they can get there quickly, even though neither has a drivers’ licence nor car.
Paul lives at Tinwald, from where it takes him 11 minutes on his bicycle, while Levi lives at Netherby, from where it takes him four minutes on his scooter.
Paul has a scanner, which picks up a signal about 15 seconds before the fire siren sounds. Before Paul got a bicycle, he would sprint into town.
‘‘I think I did about four million steps by the end of last year, it was absolutely ridiculous. Now I have my bike, it’s much easier,’’ he said.
They will often go to the scene of a fire, if they can find where it is, either from the station or directly from their homes. If they are at the station, they get an idea of where the fire trucks are going, as the vehicles leave a water trail. They will also often see smoke, and can pick up information online, including from the Fire and Emergency New Zealand incident reports web page.
‘‘We go on a bit of a tiki tour to find them,’’ Paul said.
One of the longest treks Paul had done to a fire was one several kilometres from his home, on a Frasers Rd farm in February.
It destroyed a hay shed, shelter belt and 2ha of crop. Following the blaze The Ashburton Courier reported it was the biggest in Mid Canterbury for seven years.
‘‘I walked all the way out there, took about one hour,’’ Paul said.
‘‘The New Zealand Herald took one of my photos and gave me credit for it, that was pretty cool,’’ he said.
A more recent fire he had videoed and photographed was of a ute on State Highway 1 at Tinwald earlier this month. The Ashburton Courier used Paul’s photo with its story about the incident.
Levi also has a portfolio of Mid Canterbury incidents, including photos and video of crews responding to a garage fire on Havelock St at 5am one morning last month.
Getting up that early for Levi was not a problem, it was before school after all. Levi attends Ashburton College, and is a member of the Ashburton Cadet Unit.
One of the group’s latest posts is of fire crews responding to smoke seen in the Ashburton River bed, on Sunday. Both Paul and Levi have their own YouTube channels with similar content.
Paul, a hospitality worker between jobs, said he had been motivated to start the Facebook group when he got a good response to a video he took on YouTube. It was of a fire engine with lights and sirens going through Tinwald down the highway.
‘‘I thought this is pretty cool, people must like it,’’ he said.
Via YouTube he met another man, who lives in Dunedin, who also enjoyed posting photos and videos of emergency services. Angelus Parker is now one of three moderators of the group.
The group has about 11,200 members, and is gaining about 300 new members each week.
Paul said it was rewarding to be able to connect people throughout New Zealand with a shared passion of emergency services and response. Members can post their own photos and videos, while Paul and the moderators will share media releases about accidents and closed roads, and posts from emergency services around the country. Content is checked to make sure it is not graphic or would cause privacy concerns.
‘‘It’s a great source of information,’’ Paul said of the group.
They also took footage of emergency services such as ambulance and police, but the fire service was their favourite. Levi hopes to himself become a volunteer firefighter.
They had a good relationship with the Ashburton Volunteer Fire Brigade, and abided by protocol to stay at safe distances from appliances and when videoing incidents.
Chief Alan Burgess confirmed what Paul and Levi were doing was fine, as long as such protocols were followed.
‘‘These days if you go to anything, somebody’s got a camera or phone out recording something, that’s the world we are living in,’’ Burgess said.
