The pyromanic activities of some students at the Hyde Street party have been slammed by fire fighters and officials, with Willowbank fire station officer Grant Clarkson labelling students “idiots” and “sheep”.
Clarkson told the Otago Daily Times that “half of our future leaders appear to be idiots. The other half appear to be sheep”. He was referring to the students who lit couches, mattresses and rubbish on fire towards the end of the organised street party that took place on Saturday March 19. One incident led to flames spreading to a banner on the front of a house and subsequently setting a top-floor resident’s curtains alight. No significant property damage occurred, however.
“It's idiotic behaviour, and there are obviously a lot of sheep that sit there watching - and they don't do anything to stop it.”
Critic spoke to a senior fire fighter from the Willowbank station about the Hyde Street incidents. He said that fire crews appreciated that students were trying to have fun and told Critic that many of the fire fighters were former students themselves.
“A lot of the fire service are ex-students and all of them have been through the same ‘party-era’ of their lives that a lot of us find ourselves in right now. The problem arises when ratepayer’s resources are saturated by unnecessary and dangerous actions of intoxicated students.”
“We are all for you students having fun, just don’t light any bloody fires. We need to be able to get to car accidents and other emergencies so we cannot afford to be wasting our time attending to couch fires outside a student flat.”
He added that the general consensus of the station crew was that the event should be banned.
“If the fire service have to contribute money to the DCC for a road closure in order to run a parade, I see no reason why students should get it all for free, then have the DCC come and help clean up the mess the next day. We do not want to see the event to go ahead in future.”
Fired Up
