Hawke's Bay residents and businesses were billed almost $600,000 over the past five years for calling the Fire Service when there was no emergency.
Fire Service figures provided to Hawke's Bay Today showed $598,000 was charged to building owners, businesses and individuals over the past five years for false alarm calls. Last year $113,850 was charged.
The Fire Service can charge $1150 when called out when "there was no genuine fire or other emergency requiring intervention" - however, it was only charged after the third false alarm call in 12 months.
The service made clear it would not discourage genuine calls for assistance. For these purposes, a "good intent" false alarm call - when a person had a well-founded belief a fire was occurring, despite there being no fire - was also not charged.
National risk management advisor Todd O'Donoghue said false alarms were time consuming, resource-heavy and dangerous.