Epidemic of False Fire Calls

Manawatu Times, Volume 65, Issue 1, 2 January 1940, Page 6

Epidemic of False Fire Calls

Brigade Kept Busy Over New Year Week-end COST TO BOARD AT LEAST £2O While a false alarm of fire is not unusual in the first few minutes of a New Year, the Palmerston North Brigade was put to considerable trouble and expense quite unnecessarily over tho weekend when no fewer than five malicious alarms wero received through the call box system. The first of these was to the corner ot Taonui and Maire Streets at 12.5 a.in. on Sunday. Not long after, at 12.39, the brigade's machines wero sent on another fruitless errand to the intersection of Main and Andrew Young Streets. The year 1940 was barely five minutes old when the siren sounded as the brigade sped through the Square in response to a malicious alarm from a box situated outside the Manawatu Knitting Mills’ premises in Main Street. That may or may not have been the work of a practical joker. Some misguided person, not satisfied with this, pressed the alarm button at the corner of Featherston and Ward Streets at 2.32 a.m. Hardly had the screech of the siren subsided as the brigade found that it had been misled a fourth time than a fresh call came from the intersection of Russell Street and Florence Avenue at 2.3 s a.m. In every instance the summons was made through the automatic signal system, which suggests that they were deliberately given without thought as to the inconvenience and expense to which the Fire Brigade might be put. At a conservative estimate, based on figures made public at various times, the cost to the Fire Board of the malicious calls over the New Year weex-end would be £2O. That is not the whole of the story for it could well happen that while there were machines responding to a false alarm a genuine one could be received and the brigado would not have the immediate use of all of Its machines. Indeed this was illustrated yesterday morning when another machine had to be despatched from the station to the second of two false alarms received within six minutes. Tho superintendent of tho brigado, Mr. P. A. Milverton, said last evening that any person who was proved to have given a falso alarm of lire could be lined up to £SO or given a term of imprisonment. While the system under which the brigade was organised meant that they could cope with several alarms at the same time or within very short intervals by sending different lire engines and koeping some in reserve, added the superintendent, the practice of needlessly summoning the brigade was to bo deyriored.

SIX FALSE CALLS LAST MONTH GENUINE ALARMS OUTNUMBERED In the return dealing with the fire calls for tho month of December, 1939, the superintendent of tho Palmerston North Fire Brigade, Mr. P. A. Milverton, states that there were two calls to actual fires, six malicious false alarms, one rubbish fire, one grass lire and one car ou fire. The total number of alarms for the month was 11, of which more than half were malicious false calls. In December, 1938, there were only five calls made to the brigade.