KINGSTON, Jamaica—The Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) is appealing to parents and guardians to discourage children from making prank calls to emergency services.

Public Education Officer at the JFB, Superintendent Emeleo Ebanks, told a recent JIS Think Tank that incidents of prank calls to the brigade from children tend to increase during the holiday season.

“We want to remind parents, remind your children, do not prank call emergency services,” he said.

“And this is not just about the Jamaica Fire Brigade. All the emergency services suffer from prank calls,” he continued.

Ebanks further outlined the risks involved when fire trucks respond unnecessarily to prank calls.

“A fire truck coming down the road in itself is dangerous. This is a truck that is operating under emergency conditions. Every time that truck drives out under emergency conditions, you are endangering the lives of the firefighters [and] you’re endangering the lives of other road users, so we don’t want a situation where trucks are driving out and it is a prank call,” he said.

Prank calls can also delay responses for genuine emergencies by diverting trucks and personnel away from their base, making them unable to respond efficiently.

“If you call the Jamaica Fire Brigade or any of the emergency services and you give a prank call, the fire station is here and they leave from this point and you have a real situation, the fire truck is no longer responding from this point because you would have sent them to over there,” Ebanks explained.

“What you are doing is compounding this situation that you now have by sending the fire truck away. And, God forbid, you, your family members or a loved one is now in need of the services that you would have sent on a prank call. Desist. It is in nobody’s interest to do these prank calls,” he emphasised.

In 2024, the JFB received 1,759 malicious false alarms, a 24.4 per cent increase when compared to the 1,413 calls received in 2023.

— JIS