Firefighting heroes - ‘I COULDN’T WAIT TO JOIN DAD!’

When the siren sounds, trailblazers Paul and Olivia have a burning desire to help

- Cloe Willetts

Two years ago, Canterbury teenager Olivia Chinnery sat in the back of a moving fire truck, sirens roaring as crew in uniform pulled on their helmets beside her. It was her first bushfire callout as a freshly recruited volunteer for the Woodend Fire Brigade and as smoke emerged ahead of them, the driver instructed, “It’s going to be a big one!”

“There was a huge scrubby at Pines Beach, and as we were driving towards the smoke, everyone was being issued instructions for our arrival and I was sitting there freaking out a bit!” recalls the 18-year-old, whose father Paul, also a firefighter for the past 20 years, was in the front. “But I’d waited most of my life to be there doing it.”

From as young as five, Olivia accompanied Paul to the local fire station, near their family’s nursery business in the Waimakariri District, where she’d happily sweep the engine bay on a Sunday.

Although she and her sisters Nicole, 25, a nurse, and legal administrator Emma, 23, each had turns joining their dad at the station, it was Olivia who followed in his footsteps at age 16.