Jamaica Fire Brigade working to identify prank callers

With an increase in the number of malicious false alarm calls in 2024, Commissioner of the Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) Stewart Beckford says that a project is being worked on to identify where prank calls originate.

"You will have one central number, and that system will be able to identify where callers are," he said, adding that the system will also be helpful during genuine emergencies when a caller gets disconnected, as the location would be known. Beckford, in an interview with JIS News, once again urged Jamaicans to stop making prank calls to the emergency services. He said that last year, the JFB received 1,759 malicious false alarms, a 24.4 per cent increase when compared to the 1,413 calls received in 2023.

"The truth is that we continue to see these increases mainly because of the issues we have been experiencing with the bomb threat incidents that we have been responding to," said Beckford. He noted that last year, the JFB responded to several bomb threats at schools, business process outsourcing companies, ministries and agencies of government. Beckford also pointed out that the increase in prank calls is also prevalent during the summer.

"There is a proliferation of cell phones, four [and] five-year-olds are carrying [them]. The truth is that a lot of these children, when they are home in the summer, if they are not occupied, they use these phones to call the fire brigade," said Beckford.

"While we encourage persons to give these children the phone so that in case there is a genuine emergency, they can call or they can contact you the parent, you must discourage them from using it to make calls that are not real," he added. Beckford emphasised that prank calls divert the JFB's resources from real emergencies.

"It ties up valuable resources that could be deployed elsewhere. We have seen in the past where our units, either on its way to or returning from such a call that we thought was genuine, have been involved in accidents." He noted that when this happens, some areas are left without fire coverage for an extended period.