Fire crews called to two false alarms a day in student halls

FIREFIGHTERS are called to an average of two false alarms at Edinburgh student halls every day, costing up to £250,000 a year, it was revealed today.

Figures have shown that the fire brigade has made 1,743 trips to university halls and flats in the past 33 months. At least 250 of these have been identified as "malicious", while only a small number involved an actual blaze.

While fire chiefs said it was impossible to put an exact cost on the number of call-outs to student accommodation, given the varying response each time, it is understood the cost is approaching a 250,000 each year.

It costs about 400 to send a fire engine out, meaning the cost of the last three years has reached at least 700,000.

David Lockhart, community safety manager for Lothian and Borders Fire Service, said: "We will always attend an incident and treat it with the same urgency no matter where it is. What is not acceptable is the number of malicious calls that have been made.

"It is totally unnecessary and from our point of view extremely dangerous because it is taking crews away from other potential incidents in the area.

"If you look at where the four universities are, it is spread out right across from Heriot-Watt at Riccarton to Queen Margaret University near Musselburgh.

"It is often down to alcohol and high jinks."

There is no chance of the fire service attempting to recoup costs from universities, with officials preferring to work with security and facilities staff to educate students on the dangers of prank calls.

Mr Lockhart added that steam from showers, deodorant spray and cigarette smoke were often the sources of accidental alarms, which automatically summon the brigade without the need for a 999 call.

The statistics show only 82 times out of more than 1,700 was the cause of attendance credited to fire, and when there were flames to extinguish it was almost always a cooking-related incident.

There were a small number of false alarms triggered with good intentions, while the majority of alarms which caused vehicles to attend were never categorised.

It is understood many of those too would have been malicious.

Faulty equipment also accounted for some false alarms.

Edinburgh, Napier, Heriot-Watt and Queen Margaret university halls and flats were all included in the document.

Councillor Mike Bridgman, convener of the Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue Board, said: "There's no excuse for malicious calls, especially from students, who are supposed to know better and haven't made it to university by being stupid.

"The firefighters are extremely professional and treat every job the same, but this behaviour is putting lives at risk because it could be taking people away from more serious fires."