NSW firefighters are being taken off trucks to plug gaps in the chronically understaffed fire safety unit | Nigelgladstone
on whether the fire safety branch can provide an assessment of plans within 28 days and are now only done on projects posing the greatest risk.
Mr Drury said they are "overwhelmed with requests for these reports to be analysed and scrutinised and, unfortunately, they slip through the cracks ... a lot of the developments are left unscrutinised". "[The] regulation changed from 'must provide an initial fire safety report' to 'may' and if it is not done [within 28 days] it is just assumed that development can go ahead," he said."The materials that buildings are made out of and the contents that go in them are generally made out of a synthetic material, which burns faster, hotter and with more toxic smoke," said Mr Drury, a firefighter for 20 years.
"At the beginning of my career it might have taken a building with more natural materials 20 minutes to fully catch alight, but we are finding that now within minutes buildings are going up in smoke.""The organisation employs a risk-based approach to building inspections and assigns resources to priority needs since not all incoming work is mandatory or requires FRNSW to be the decision-maker," the spokesman said.
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