Dozens of hoax calls made to Ballarat City Fire Brigade are taking valuable resources away from potentially life threatening incidents.
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Scott Gambino, senior station officer at Ballarat City Fire Brigade, says those making the calls are playing a potentially deadly game.
“What a lot of people don't realise is we respond to emergency calls other than fires,” he said.
“We respond to car accidents, we respond to chemical spills and we now respond for medical emergencies. We could potentially have a call for a cardiac arrest come in and if we're out attending to a hoax call, it could prove fatal.”
Providing false information to the Triple-0 call service is illegal – whether via phone, text or internet.
The penalty for providing false information to the service could include up to five years’ imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $96,714, according to the Crimes Act.
This calendar year Ballarat City Fire Brigade has attended to 32 hoax incidents.
Other than putting people with genuine calls in danger by taking away valuable resources, Mr Gambino also stressed the danger associated with getting units to a scene.
“It's dangerous to provide information to first responders and also dangerous to the community,” he said.
“We obviously drive to the incident under lights and sirens, we have to go through red lights which is dangerous to not only us but certainly for other road users as well.
“For every Triple-0 call we respond to, we respond with a minimum of two fire trucks, so that's two appliances taken away from genuine emergencies.”
Mr Gambino estimated fire brigades would have received well over 100 hoax calls across all stations in the region.
He says turning out to hoax calls can be incredibly frustrating for emergency service workers.
“People need to think before they do it, think about the consequences – you could potentially be taking someone’s life.”
Victoria Police also suffer from ‘false reports’.
“Nuisance calls continue to clog up telephone lines,” Police Inspector Peter Ferguson said.
“Some people fail to see the bigger picture or understand the consequences of their actions when they misuse an emergency service.
“Nuisance calls can place lives at risk as it slows operators down from answering the genuine calls.
“Every time we answer a nuisance call, that’s 30 seconds or a minute of call-taker time lost to answer a real call that’s next in the queue.”