Case Study: Fire and Emergency New Zealand achieves real-time situational awareness and improved firefighter safety with Microsoft Azure

New Zealand first responders embrace cloud technologies to improve turnout strategy and safety

Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ), the national fire and emergency service with 2,700 paid staff and 11,500 volunteers, needed to modernize its IT to deliver on its Vision 2020. Aging datacenters, no single authoritative data source, limited mobile access and a slow VPN left crews relying on radios, paper plans and inconsistent information—reducing situational awareness and trust in systems.

FENZ rearchitected its environment on Microsoft Azure, creating a replicated SQL Server data hub wrapped with API Management and Service Bus, and equipping trucks with mobile information hubs and a first‑response app that use multiple bearer networks under a PACE protocol. The solution delivers real‑time turnout data, faster message delivery (beating radio dispatch by up to 20 seconds), improved crew safety and situational awareness, and a platform for IoT, machine learning, cross‑agency APIs and volunteer-driven app development.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand

Chris Cunningham

Business Solutions Manager