With malicious false-alarm calls outstripping those made up to this point last year, and potentially being responsible for at least one fatality in a real blaze, the Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) has vowed to track down and catch the pranksters who have been regularly sending the nation’s firefighters ‘joyrides’.

JFB Public Relations Officer Emeleo Ebanks has revealed that firefighters have already received 595 malicious calls this year, trending towards an increase on the 1,119 such calls received for all of last year.

There were 1,204 malicious calls in 2019.

Ebanks, who was speaking with the Jamaica Information Service, urged persons to desist from making malicious false-alarm calls which not only waste the country’s resources but delay the response of firefighters to genuine fire calls, resulting in loss of life and property.

One such incident occurred on July 15, when firefighters from May Pen, Clarendon, responded to a false fire call in Douglas Castle, St Ann, near the border of Clarendon.

Ebanks said that, on the way back to May Pen, the fire unit was involved in a motor-vehicle accident with a goods delivery truck.

“The livelihood of this other individual is taken into consideration. We look at the lives that could have been impacted had the accident been more serious. We also look at the fact that May Pen is now out of a fire truck for an extended period because of this senseless act,” he stressed while also revealing that, less than 24 hours later the fire brigade received a call for a house fire that a truck from Linstead had to respond to as the May Pen vehicle was out of commission.

“…And the sad reality is that someone died as a result of that fire,” he added.

Said Ebanks: “To the individuals, who are doing this, we are going to pursue you, we are going to catch you. We have made reports to the police, we are doing the investigations and we are going to catch you. Again, we ask that you desist from doing this or you are going to suffer the consequences.”