MAY PEN, Clarendon — A senior official of the Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) is asking residents of the parish to desist from making prank calls to the brigade as it is costing the agency dearly.

Superintendent Horace Thomas, who heads the Clarendon division of the JFB, has underscored that prank calls to the brigade puts a significant strain on its resources.

“For the month of February, we would have responded to 91 fire calls of which 10 per cent of those were false and it becomes directly clear where the total consumption of fuel used was approximately 450,000 [litres] for the month of February. If we do a rough estimate, it could be more based on the distance, because it would have cost us approximately 40,000 [litres] just to respond to those false alarm calls [each time],” said Thomas as he provided a report at the monthly meeting of the Clarendon Municipal Corporation on Thursday.

“We realise that approximately 10 per cent of our calls from 2021 to present continue to be false and costs us as taxpayers a lot of money if we multiply 40 by 12, it’’s a sizeable sum and so I want to use this medium to encourage our citizens to desist from making prank calls, desist from making false calls.

“We are not suggesting that if you see something, you should hesitate but when it is blatant, or what we call malicious false alarm, we are saying that they should desist from those activities bearing in mind that the total complement of fire appliances available at this time is three, so it puts pressure on the resources that we have to manage the entire parish when we have to be responding to false calls,” added Thomas.

He told the councillors that up to February of this year, the lion’s share of the 91 calls (62 per cent) were for bush fires.

“It should be noted that when compared to January this year, there would have been a 47 per cent increase in the response that we would have made to bush fire calls. However, when compared to February 2023, which was very hot, there is a noticeable decrease…so we [are] moving in the right direction.

“We continue to grapple with malicious calls. Malicious calls when compared to January would have increased by 50 per cent and so I am imploring all concerned to desist from making such calls. We continue to be proactive through our fire prevention and public education unit”,” said Thomas.

Councillor Hershel Brown (Jamaica Labour Party, Chapelton Division) enquired if the malicious calls could be traced to a particular number or person. “

“Have you sought to turn over those numbers to the police so they could make examples of them?” questioned Brown.

But Thomas told the municipal corporation that it may take some time to determine if the calls were from a particular number.

“While we would want to do that, we are not yet at that stage and so in short order we should be able to do that. Based on recent developments, we should be able accurately identify the numbers and persons who make such calls because a person may call in from a number but that number may not be assigned to them so it might be a bit tricky. I am just hoping that persons will be responsible and get the message and desist from making these false calls,” Thomas said.

In the meantime the Clarendon fire chief also cautioned motorists to exercise care when using the nations roads.

“As it relates to motor vehicle calls, we continue to see a trend. One accident is too many and one loss of life is one too many and so I want to use this medium to ask our motorists to slow down and drive within the prescribed speed limits and to arrive alive,” added Thomas.