Fire service spends £1m rushing to deal with false alarms

VANDALS deliberately triggered hundreds of false fire alarms in the West Midlands last year, costing the cash-strapped fire service more than a million pounds.

The latest figures from the Home Office have revealed that there were 535 malicious false fire alarms made in the region in 2018-19, or more than 10 a week.

A false fire alarm is considered malicious when a person calls 999 to report a fire or triggers an alarm knowing full well there is no actual fire.

Making a hoax emergency call is illegal, and those caught and prosecuted can face a fine of up to £5,000 or six months in prison.

Responding to an incident costs fire services £1,970 on average, according to official government estimates – meaning the total bill for hoax calls in the West Midlands came in at £1.1 million in the last year.

On top of malicious hoax calls, there were a further 8,700 fires falsely reported in the West Midlands in 2018/19.

These false alarms can include incidents where someone accidentally sets off an alarm, an alarm malfunctions or is triggered by something innocuous like burnt cooking, or a 999 call is made incorrectly but with good intent.

False alarms make up nearly a third of all incidents attended by

West Midlands fire service, and cost around £18.2 million in total last year. While the number of deliberate and malicious false alarms has dropped slightly in the last year, the total number of false alarms has been rising. It now stands at the highest level seen in the last four years.

The rise in false alarms comes at a time when the service has seen cuts to firefighter numbers.

There are currently the equivalent of 1,402 firefighters working full time with West Midlands fire service – down from 1,408 in 2018, and the lowest number seen since at least 2002, when there were 2,035.

Nationally, there were 7,160 malicious false fire alarms made across England in 2018/19 – costing fire services an estimated £14.1 million.

There were a further 223,000 false alarms that were not malicious, bringing the total cost of false alarms to £455.2 million nationally.