Dannevirke school false alarms get fire brigade hot under the collar

Students have been setting off fire alarms at Dannevirke High School.

A rash of incidents involving students activating fire alarms in what seem to be pranks at Dannevirke High School are frustrating not only staff but also the fire brigade.

It’s believed there have been at least four of what have been termed “malicious” incidents so far this year, leaving school staff feeling upset and disappointed.

Principal Di Carter says any time a fire alarm is activated, the alert goes automatically to the fire brigade, even if it’s a false alarm.

“We don’t want that to happen.”

She says the students “think it’s a joke sometimes”.

“Don’t play around with it. We’re really serious about this.”

Her fear is that one day the alarm will be a genuine one which could be ignored.

While teachers and students are still required to evacuate buildings during a fire alarm, they won’t do it as quickly if they believe it’s not genuine, she says.

It’s not just the school that is impacted. Dannevirke Volunteer Fire Brigade chief Peter Sinclair says the students behind it don’t seem to realise that if two appliances are tied up at the school, “should a life-threatening situation come in there’ll be an appliance called from out of town because we’re caught up”.

The next closest brigade would be Norsewood, but that delay could be costly in a life-threatening scenario.

Sinclair and the school’s board of trustees presiding member James Kendrick spoke to the students at an assembly, reminding them of the consequences of their actions.

He says they explained to the full assembly what could happen, telling the students to think about what would happen if their whānau needed help from the fire brigade but help might not arrive in time because the appliances were at a false alarm.

It was not only the issue of the brigade not being able to attend a genuine incident, but also the financial burden where employers were having to let their staff go during work time to attend a call for something that was “totally unnecessary”.

“Employers are pretty good but I’m sure if we keep getting these, they’ll be saying ‘no, you’re not responding to that’,” Sinclair says.

“That’s another concern, which leads on to the cry wolf syndrome where one day it could be a real one and both brigade members and students will just be thinking it’s a false alarm.”

Kendrick says he’s been doing what he can to empower and educate the students.

He says with the first one, he took the student to the fire station to apologise to the brigade and did something similar with the second incident.

The third was treated more seriously and the fourth was to be suspended and a meeting was called with the assistant principal and the student’s mother.

“The young [student] came down with me, apologised to the brigade and hung out with us for the night.”

He says with the last incident he was the officer in charge of the truck and the school was “highly embarrassed”.

It was decided to address the students at assembly and Kendrick laid out the issue.

“I was quite brutal,” he says. “You’ve got to be upfront and brutal with them.”

Sinclair also told them about possible ramifications.

According to Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ), while rarely used, the 2017 act says it is an offence to knowingly give false alarm of fire and is liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment up to a maximum of six months or a fine no more than $75,000 or both, or in any other case, up to $150,000 in fines.

However, they prefer to take the route of education rather than prosecution.

Kendrick says the school has been “impeccable” and gone above and beyond in dealing with it by putting messages out through the school newsletters and addressing it in assemblies, but the problem has continued, hence their talk at the assembly late last month.

“The next time it happens, we’ll go down the pathway of letting FENZ deal with it.”