"It's not uncommon. If there's a fire alarm at a Ponsonby school, crews from Ponsonby and probably Auckland City would go.
"That area then has a depleted service and if a real fire happens around the corner, they'd have to call in the Balmoral or Parnell crew," Stephens said.
Regular false alarms bred dangerous complacency among students and teachers, he said.
Stephens said most false alarms were caused by poorly maintained systems, particularly in older buildings which were not bound by the new standards.
"A lot of schools have alarms that are not fit for the purpose. They are really just burglar alarms with a few smoke detectors."
A $1000 fee, intended to encourage schools to fix systems, was waived for the first two callouts in a year and at the service's discretion. Around $200,000 in bills was currently outstanding.
King's College headmaster Bradley Fenner said the school had ageing infrastructure and problems with faults in its alarm system.
"We're working on things. Each of the callouts has had a different reason," Fenner said. "We don't mean to cause the Fire Service any extra work."
The school averaged two false alarms a month in the past year.
Fire Service data indicated around 10 were from students cooking in the boarding houses.
Te Puke High School and Takapuna Grammar School were flagged as having maintenance issues by the Fire Service but did not return calls.
Fire Service records indicate around half the callouts to the University of Auckland were caused during renovations.
The university said the false alarms were linked to construction projects across its campuses and false alarms were inevitable.
Worst offenders
24 King's College
16 Te Puke High School
16 Marlborough Boys College
11 St Pauls Collegiate Hamilton
11 Hamilton Girls High School
8 Takapuna Grammar School
