Firemen face six malicious calls each day
...while number of fire deaths rises
FIREFIGHTERS are being forced to deal with six hoax calls a day – as the number of people dying in blazes rises, a report has revealed.
Malicious calls to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) have increased by 15 per cent in only one year, with officers dealing with 2,375 bogus incidents in 2015-16, compared to 2,056 the previous year.
Overall in the year 2015-16, fire crews attended 49,412 false alarms, 56 per cent of all incidents. This was 109 more than in 2014-15.
The annual statistics released yesterday said one in 20 false alarms were malicious hoaxes, where firemen were sent to tackle non-existent emergencies.
The rest were either made by those who had called in good faith, believing the fire service was needed, or automated callouts made by fire alarm systems.
The document describes malicious calls as ‘made with the intention of getting the SFRS to attend a non-existent incident, including deliberate and suspected malicious intent’.
Politicians hit out at hoax callers for putting other people’s lives in danger by taking firemen away from genuine fire emergencies.
At the same time, the report showed 45 people in Scotland were killed in fires last year, four more than in 2014-15.
Fire investigators said six of the deaths were suicides – two fewer than the previous year.
The figures mean the fire fatality rate in Scotland was higher last year than in both England and Wales, with 8.4 deaths per million people compared to 5.5 and 6.1 respectively.
Last night, Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur said: ‘The men and women of the SFRS save lives across Scotland every day.
‘The service has lost 1,000 staff since the SNP’s centralisation and, combined with their attending 4,000 more incidents last year, more malicious calls is something that they could really do without.
‘SFRS officers are responding to more fires and playing an important role in other incidents where lives are at risk.
‘Malicious calls prevent the SFRS responding to genuine emergencies. We should be blunt about this: these calls are putting lives in danger.
‘We need to ensure that the SFRS and other agencies have the resources they need to educate people over the risk that malicious calls pose to property and lives.’
A Scottish Labour spokesman said more should be done to deter would-be pranksters from making malicious calls.
He said: ‘As our emergency services face increased pressure because of SNP cuts, this rise in hoax calls is a cause for major concern.
‘People should realise that these calls waste valuable time and resources in our already stretched fire service.’