Firefighters in 150 mistaken call-outs to Shropshire businesses

Today Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service revealed its list of false calls made from businesses.

Since April it has received 146 calls from non-domestic buildings.

Most have come because automated fire alarms have mistaken other substances for smoke.

Pollen, steam from showers and insects flying into detector heads have all set off alarms in the last three months.

Most recently, firefighters were called out this week when reports of a fire in the open turned out to be low-lying mist.

Ian Leigh, station manager for fire protection, said: "There are many ways that people can help us, as well as themselves to try and avoid these false alarm call outs.

"There's no doubt they are a drain on the time and resources we have, and we do attend multiple false alarms pretty much daily.

"This is why we work with businesses as much as we can to try and reduce this number – you can't get rid of these alarms and we would rather businesses keep them working as they should as well as they can.

"We treat every alarm as if it is an urgent fire. When they go off, we have to trust them, otherwise there wouldn't be any point in having them in the first place."

Another cause of false alarms is when the usage of a room is changed, and the right procedures are not done to ensure the correct alarms are fitted.

Cooking fumes and steam from bathrooms can trigger certain types of alarms.

Mr Leigh said: "Often what was an everyday room might be used as a kitchen or break room. If people then forget to ensure they have the right level of detection for the risk of that room you could have burnt toast being the reason for a call out."

Concerns

He said many calls come from concerns over controlled fires such as bonfires that end up not needing action.

He added: "A lot of calls are what's classed as a false alarm with good intent.

"People might see smoke coming from a bonfire and often ring the fire brigade if it looks like it's coming from a building. Anyone having a bonfire should first contact their local fire and rescue service to let them know it's happening."

As well as people reporting what they think are genuine fires, hoax calls, or what are known as malicious false alarms can be a big concern for the fire service.

But Shropshire Fire and Rescue say these calls have been limited so far.

"Malicious calls can come for a number of reasons - from kids phoning from a pay phone, to school children, even disgruntled employees, Mr Leigh said.

"Thankfully this hasn't been a big problem so far and we have only had three since April.

"It's often because people don't understand the consequences of their actions which is why we try and educate people from a young age through programs like Crucial Crew."

Crucial Crew is a multi-agency event organised through schools, by the fire service and police.

It aims to raise awareness of safety issues to children in schools.

Shropshire Fire Service says it investigates every false alarm made and offer advice on every call on how the incident can be dealt with.