What Happened
Auckland Central Fire Station — the busiest in New Zealand — was evacuated and temporarily closed after positive asbestos tests were returned from a previously unused room that had been under monitoring since September 2024. Three fire trucks and one van were taken out of service for deep cleaning. All subsequent air monitoring tests returned negative results, allowing the station to reopen — but the incident has reignited a dispute between Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) and the firefighters’ union about how asbestos is being managed at a building that has now experienced two contamination incidents within two years.
The “Manage in Place” Strategy
FENZ has defended its approach to the station’s asbestos, which involves encapsulation and management of sealed rooms rather than full removal. This “manage in place” strategy is recognised under New Zealand’s Health and Safety at Work (Asbestos) Regulations 2016 as a legitimate approach for asbestos-containing materials that are in good condition and can be effectively sealed. The regulations permit encapsulation where removal would create greater risk than managing the material in situ — a provision that exists because disturbing asbestos-containing materials to remove them carries its own significant hazard.
The challenge is that “manage in place” requires rigorous ongoing monitoring to detect any deterioration of the containment. Two positive tests at the same facility within two years raises a legitimate question about whether the monitoring has been adequate and whether the containment has remained intact.
The Union’s Concern
The firefighters’ union has called for an independent inquiry into the station’s asbestos management, arguing that the recurrence of contamination events suggests a systemic failure in the management programme rather than an isolated incident. Unions are also raising the broader point that most New Zealand fire stations were built between 1940 and 1980 — a period when asbestos was widely used in construction — meaning the Auckland Central situation is likely representative of a network-wide challenge rather than an isolated building problem.
WorkSafe flagged FENZ’s asbestos management as deficient in 2023. The fact that a subsequent contamination event has occurred at the same station two years later will inevitably attract scrutiny about what corrective actions were taken in the intervening period.
Lessons for Building Managers
For organisations managing buildings constructed before 1990, this case is a reminder that an asbestos management plan is not a one-time document — it is a living programme that requires regular review, inspection, and updating as building conditions change. When positive test results are recorded, the response must be documented, investigated, and used to inform the management programme going forward. A sealed room that tested positive once and was then returned to monitoring without programme revision is not a resolved problem; it is a deferred one.
