Fire hoaxes 'a threat to lives'

Firefighters today warned lives were being put at risk by prank callers as it was revealed Shropshire's fire service received 400 hoax calls last year.

Groups of teenagers and drunk people are being blamed for many of the calls, which Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service says potentially take valuable manpower and resources away from genuine emergencies.

It said as well as dealing with the hoaxes, crews were called to about 2,000 false alarms - nearly half its total calls.

Dave Bartlett, the service's false alarm reduction team leader, warned people would have a criminal record if they were caught.

"It's putting people's safety at risk. It is taking fire appliances away from areas where they may be required for genuine purposes," he said.

"It is a criminal offence, it's as simple as that."

Mr Bartlett said the service responded to some of the calls although some were filtered out, adding that in the near future callers could be barred from using their phone if they made a hoax call.

"We are now developing a policy whereby we will be asking very shortly, phone providers to cut phones off," he said.

"We will be contacting mobile phone providers and landline providers where we know we have hoax calls being made. It may only take one call for us to request that phone to be disconnected."

Sally Barnett, of the service's fire control at Shrewsbury, said: "We have teenagers who think it's funny to get all their mates together in a phone box and make a call. You can hear them laughing in the background. We've had inebriated adults who think it's amusing."

Watch manager Ian Titley said: "If we've got people running around on hoax calls, somebody else's life is in danger."

By John Kirk