£1m saving over false fire alerts

Fire service chiefs in Staffordshire say £1 million could be saved by not responding to false alarms.

A new policy will see firefighters no longer respond to emergency alarms at business premises unless they can confirm a genuine fire. People's homes are not affected by the move.

Unwanted Fire Signals (UwFS) — where alarms are set off by dust or engineers for example — represent 21 per cent of all incidents for Staffordshire Fire and Rescue.

In 2009-10 it had 3,597 UwFS calls at a cost of £240 for each fire engine. Most times there was no fire. The 2010/11 figure was 2,579. While on these calls crews were not available for risk reduction work, training and genuine incidents.

Staffordshire Fire and Rescue board have been advised that introducing such a policy would be low risk providing necessary control measures were put in place.