Fire chiefs have unveiled fresh changes in the way it responds to unwanted fire signals after revealing they attended almost 10,000 false alarms last year.
The figure relates to the number of unwanted calls by firefighters across the East region - which includes both Stirling and Clackmannanshire.
From the start of next month, an alarm activation will rely upon those with fire safety responsibility to investigate the cause of the alarm and only call 999 once a fire has been confirmed.
This approach mirrors those held by other fire services across the UK, who require confirmed status of a fire being sending appliances to the scene.
The change in response will affect all premises and businesses who do not provide sleeping accommodation.
Hospitals, care homes, hotels, student accommodation and domestic dwellings will continue to receive the current level of emergency response.
Workplaces are also being reminded of the need to provide adequate training for staff on the changes and to put in place fire safety provisions.
Deputy Assistant Chief Officer Stewart Nicholson is the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s head of service delivery for the East of Scotland.
He said: “We will continue to work with dutyholders to help them better understand their obligations, but I must stress the importance of having adequate training in place for staff and in ensuring appropriate fire safety provisions are in place within your premises. By changing our response to these types of incidents, we can potentially free up 64,000 hours every year giving firefighters more time for other activities, such as training and fire safety prevention work.
“However, there are benefits to businesses too by preventing these incidents from happening in the first place.
“On average, every unwanted fire alarm signal interrupts business for around 27 minutes each time.”
Most signals are caused by automatic fire systems to cooking fumes or maintenance issues and the changes are anticipated to reduce the unnecessary call-out of fire crews and increase the capacity for them to respond to real emergencies.
