Alarm as firefighters respond to four false call-outs a day in Fife

Firefighters in Fife were called to an average of four false alarms a day in the past year, according to new figures.

Senior area officer Roddie Keith said false alarms accounted for one in three turnouts and were “draining a significant resource away from their primary role”.

He told Fife Council’s environment, protective services and community safety committee firefighters were called to 1,463 false alarms in the last year.

St Andrews ward had the highest number of cases due to the high prevalence of student housing with older fire systems.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is working with the university to upgrade systems in an effort to reduce the number of callouts.

One false alarm a week also turns out to be from a businesses testing its fire system without letting the service know in advance.

Liberal Democrat councillor Margaret Kennedy asked if stronger measures could be taken, such as fining businesses. Mr Keith said he would rather not take that route.

“While there have been some cases down south of fines being issued, it is our stance that we’d rather work with the businesses and maintain a strong relationship,” he said.

Labour councillor Gordon Langlands questioned why hospital false alarm call-outs were still so high – at 14% – when systems should have been upgraded.

Mr Keith responded: “Because of the nature of hospitals, in having the most vulnerable people, their systems are still the most sensitive.

“However, there has been a lot of work in helping reduce the number of appliances we need to send to these incidents thanks to the upgrade.

“Previously, Victoria Hospital for instance, was all wired up on the one system. When the alarm was raised, we would send six appliances.

“There have been months of work separating these systems so that we can now send a reduced number of appliances for smaller buildings which reduces the overall vehicular attendance.”

While the figure was still high for false alarms, it was a reduction of 16% in the last year – better than the national average.