An increasing amount of false fire alarms has the City of Ottawa considering a new bylaw against repeat offenders.
The number of false alarms has been over 8,000 since 2007, starting at 8,079 that year and settling at 8,766 in 2011.
That's about a third of the more than 26,000 total calls Ottawa Fire Services received last year.
Ottawa's fire chief said problems with some building owners and repeated false alarms are causing them to consider punishment.
"It can be cooking related, it can be smoking related, very often it is maintenance related or a lack of maintenance that causes system malfunctions," said John deHooge.
"We're seriously looking at coming up with a bylaw structure that has a cost associated, if there are nuisance alarms or alarms that are the result of poor maintenance systems."
Statistics show there were more than 200 properties that called in more than three false alarms in 2011, at a cost of about $240 per truck per hour.
This means the city spent over $2 million last year responding to false alarms.
"When we have false alarms it takes us away from the real calls," deHooge said. "If somebody is having a real emergency . . . and we're busy to responding to false alarms . . ."
Residents at 1244 Donald Street said they had a big problem with false alarms in their apartment building last summer until an actual electrical fire displaced 750 people in August.
"Anytime from six o'clock in the morning to three o'clock in the morning," said Christine Ayers. "It was everyday for like two to three weeks, four times a day sometimes."
"When the fire actually happened, nobody believed anything" said Chantal Huot.
False Alarm Calls
- 2007: 8,079
- 2008: 8,539
- 2009: 8,710
- 2010: 8,809
- 2011: 8,776
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Claudia Cautillo
