Stu Ide - Facing the heat, purifying the gold

As a veteran firefighter Stu Ide has devoted his life to saving other people’s. It’s in his blood.

Unfortunately, while the outcomes haven’t always made for great job satisfaction, after 52 years working for the NZ Fire Service, 23 as a Frankton Brigade volunteer, many did, and Stu can be satisfied that he’s always given it his all. He wouldn’t have it any other way. The only thing Stu reckons he’d change: “I’d spend more time with my family as shift work got in the way,” he says. Now 73 and a proud Grandad he’s making up for it though.

Life for Stu really started in Invercargill where the family moved from Dunedin when he was two. “Dad was deputy chief fire officer for the Invercargill brigade until he retired. Son Mike was a Frankton volunteer firefighter too.” Stu’s maternal grandfather and great grandfather were also both firefighters in Port Chalmers. “That makes me a fourth-generation firefighter and Mike fifth,” he says, proudly.

Stu grew up in the Invercargill firefighter flats. “It was like a big family, ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’ all around us. Everybody watched out for you.”

A keen swimmer, family caravan holidays were spent at Frankton and Arrowtown where Stu developed a love of kayaking and sailing, as well as gold panning, something he’s since championed internationally.

“I went to school to eat lunch and play music,” he grins. As a proficient euphonium player, he was offered a music scholarship but made the ‘hard call’ to turn it down.

His father noticed he had a knack for pulling small things apart and fixing them so at 15 Stu began an apprenticeship with watchmaker Alex Casey, eventually becoming assistant manager at Warburton Jewellers under Warren Warburton.

In his late teens Stu started training as a volunteer with the Invercargill Fire Brigade. He soon left his trade to join the Fire Service, doing watchmaking on his days off. As a volunteer he recalls being caught in his PJs more than once, having thrown the uniform over the top in a rush.

In 1975 Stu joined the permanent Invercargill brigade where he attended more than his share of tragic vehicle accidents and house fires, the devastation and impact at times proving too much. “Those were the days when they’d slap you on the back and say, ‘’C’mon, boy’. ‘Come and have a beer with us’, and move on,” Stu says. “They eventually realised so many guys were leaving the Fire Service and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was why. They were dealing with traumatic events they’d never witnessed before. It’s cumulative and builds up,” he says. “It was the motor vehicle accidents involving children that really got to me, especially when my kids were that age.” At one stage he’d attended three such tragedies in a row. “Thankfully, we now spend a lot of time with firefighters helping them to manage and process the stress.” Wife of 51 years Sandy was a wonderful listening ear for Stu.

Firefighters worked for three days and nights continuously during the Southland floods in the 1980s without rest. “We worked our butts off,” he says. “You do crash eventually.”

After 29 years of that constant shift work upheaval, sometimes without rest for days, Stu moved to Queenstown around 2000, opting for a 40-hour-a-week fire safety officer role. He’d already built a home here and stayed in that role until 2017.

The Wilson’s Bay fires would be the worst he’s witnessed locally. “It was curling all around us and Bob Robertson (fire chief) said, ‘Stu, that could go all the way back to Moke Lake and through to Bob’s Peak if we don’t get hold of it.” Stu found his exhausted son, Mike, asleep at 7am in a ditch by the side of the road the following morning, after he’d fought all night with others to extinguish the fires.

There have been entertaining cat call-outs, like the one that catapulted through the air, legs spread-eagled, when their ladder hit the power pole.

Now retired, Stu’s proud of his 50 years double gold star from the Fire Service and his Queenstown Rotary ‘Unsung Hero’ award. He’s still a strong advocate for functional, working smoke alarms. “Structure fires decreased dramatically when those were introduced,” he says.

In 2017 Stu, daughter Megan and another Kiwi competitor won a gold medal at the World Gold Panning Championships in Scotland – a first for NZ. “The key is patience – 90% of it is science and 10% luck.” Technique comes into play too and Stu, unlike some who like to keep their gold secrets to themselves, loves to share that technique with younger enthusiasts. He teaches gold panning in Arrowtown every summer, hoping to pass on those skills from the older generation.

He and Megan are now working on a NZ bid to bring the 2026 world championships to Cromwell.