Senior station officer (New Zealand Fire Service)
Senior station officer is a rank in the New Zealand Fire Service. In career fire stations, an SSO is the officer in charge of a single watch at a station with multiple appliances. They ride as an officer on one appliance, with the other appliances being commanded by station officers.
Senior station officer is also a rank in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade in Melbourne, Australia. In the MFB a senior station officer has a silver helmet with station officers having blue helmets. It also became a rank in the Country Fire Authority in 2010.
In a volunteer brigade there is usually only one SSO, and some volunteer brigades have no SSO positions at all. Here the SSO acts as the senior operational officer, to allow the chief fire officer and their deputy to focus on the running of the brigade.
In both career and volunteer situations, an SSO reports to a CFO.
In New Zealand, the senior station officer rank insignia is two impellers. SSOs wear red helmets with two blue stripes.
