Got a Fire call the Fire and Rescue Service 16/06/07

Date:   16^th June 2007

Staff in North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service‘s Control Room are baffled by a number of recent 999 calls. On several occasions, members of the public have reported seeing a fire to the Police, rather than the Fire and Rescue Service.

Fire and Rescue Service Spokesperson Carl Boasman explains: "During May, our Control Room received over ten fire calls from Police Control rooms. It appears that the callers have come across an incident, either a fire in the open, a vehicle fire on the road or a building fire in the distance and called the Police to report it. This is causing unnecessary delays in call handling and mobilising of fire appliances. In one instance, it took crews over 18 minutes to locate and deal with a fire, because it was reported to the Police."

Although Police Control rooms are equipped to deal with 999 calls relating to Police matters, they are not able to mobilise fire appliances to incidents. This information has to be passed to Fire Control, wasting valuable time.

Station Manager Carl Boasman finishes by saying: "We are urging members of the public to report all fire related incidents to Fire and Rescue Control by dialling 999. This will avoid any unnecessary delays in mobilising fire appliances to an incident."                                                   

ENDS