Breaking Out

Kevin Ihaka describes his business as a “silviculture company with an identity crisis”.

That’s because FPS Forestry of Whangarei is not your typical silviculture operation. In fact, it didn’t have anything to do with the planting, thinning or trimming of trees at all when it first started in 1999.

FPS stands for Forest Protection Services and ex-fire officer Kevin was more intent on providing his services as a fire trainer and rural fire-fighting contractor when he went into business on his own.

“We sort of drifted into silviculture after the Carter’s turmoil, more as something to maintain a year-round flow of work and it’s grown from there,” says Kevin, acknowledging that normally silviculture crews double as fire fighters during the hot, summer months and it’s unusual to see it happen the other way around.

“It’s not what we envisaged ending up doing. But when we got into silviculture we decided we might as well do it properly.”

Kevin was actually no stranger to the forests, having worked for a forestry contractor after school, before joining the New Zealand Fire Service, where he spent ten years until deciding to go contracting. The fire side still provides a significant amount of the company’s income, with FPS undertaking the testing and maintenance of rural fire equipment for councils and the Fire Service in upper Northland and looking after the Hancock fire truck fleet, from its own purpose-built headquarters in Whangarei. FPS also has two fire trucks of its own.