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Saturday, September 15, 1973
DELIBERATE FALSE FIRE REPORTS A MENACE TO SCCIETY
Pranksters are making life extremely difficult for Fire Services
personnel and are indirectly posing a threat to public safety by deliberately
sending firemen on wild goose chases.
According to a Fire Services spokesman, a record total of 722
malicious false fire alarms were made and attended to during the 1972/73 financial
nearly 200 more than in 1971/72.
year
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"What these people don't realise is that besides the inconvenience
caused, malicious reports might seriously affect the availability of men and fire appliances in the case of a real fire breaking out when firenen are out
looking for a fire that doesn't exist," he said.
Ile added that in the interest of public safety the Fire Services could not risk not responding to calls received, real or false. "Every report must be attended to, regardless."
The spokesman noted that there had been a steady increase in the
number of malicious false reports during the past five years.
During the 1968/69 financial year, 206 such calls were received, în 1969/70 there were 352, in 1970/71 thoro were 378, and in 1971/72 there were 531.
An average of 10 man--minutes was wasted to attend to each false report,
the spokesman said.
"When you consider the total time and manpower wasted on the 2,189 malicious reports attended to during the past five years, the waste is staggering,"
he said.
ile emphasised that anyone intentionally making a false report of fire
is committing an offence which carries a maximum penalty of $1,000 and six months'
imprisonment.
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