FALSE ALARMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22532, 24 September 1936, Page 12

FALSE ALARMS

1 " " 7 FIRE BRIGADE HOAXED EPIDEMIC IN LAST > MONTH Beginning at Point. Chevalier and spreading to other suburbs, an epidemic of false fire alarms has caused the Auckland Metropolitan Fire Board much useless expense in the last month. In that time 24 malicious false alarms have been answered, at a cost of at least £l2O. It is thought that one man has been responsible. "He is chasing us all over the place," said the superintendent, Mr. W. L. Wilson, at a meeting of the Fire Board yesterday. "The majority of the calls are coming by telephone and it seems almost impossible to trace him through them. If he confined his alarms to one district it would be all right, but he has gone from Point Chevalier to Ponsonby, from Newmarket to Reinuera, so that we never know where tho next call is coming from. "We know perfectly well that it is a false alarm we are answering, but we have to turn out. He even gives 'us the number of the house where the "fire' is supposed to be, and when we '■risk for his number he gives us that of a house in Remuqra or somewhere else. Of course, when we inquire there, nothing *is known of the call." After the meeting, Mr. Wilson pointed out that, as was the case when a child was killed once, most of the brigade's accidents occurred when engines were answering malicious false alarms.