THE sight of fire engines speeding out to an emergency is common. What many of us don’t realise is that a lot of these calls are false alarms. Often they are “with good intent” – meaning they weren’t malicious, but simply due to automatic fire alarms going off.

As the fire service points out, false alarms tie up manpower. They are an expensive waste of time for a hard-pressed service. And they could cause delays and put lives at risk, if engines were attending a false alarm when a real fire broke out.

So it is understandable that fire chiefs should want to do something: especially in cases where there are repeated false alarms at the same building. But we are not sure the brigade is right to say it won’t attend automatic fire alarms during the daytime unless they are at premises where people sleep: in other words, homes.

The fire brigades union has already warned that such a policy – which would suggest that fire crews wouldn’t necessarily respond to daytime automatic alarms at offices, factories or warehouses – could be dangerous.

An alarm could go off and not be heard during daylight hours. If that happened, it could be some time before anyone noticed and called the fire brigade to confirm a fire. The chances of this might be slim. But the consequences could be serious.

The brigade says in certain circumstances, and in agreement with the owner or occupier of a building, it may still respond, but levy a charge.

That seems a much more sensible and much safer solution.