THE National Fire Authority has warned it will get tough on prank callers after incurring $30,000 in losses for the first four months of the year as a result of malicious calls.
An NFA statement said it attended to a total of 26 prank calls, 15 of them in the Western Division alone.
On a recent visit to staff in the Western, Northern and Central divisions, CEO John O'Connor said one of the main issues raised by staff was the increase in malicious or prank calls.
The Central Division recorded seven prank calls while the Northern Division recorded four.
"Responding to emergency calls is what the NFA is about and we are passionate about our operation but for our firefighters and appliances to respond to false fire calls, is simply a waste of our finite resources, time and money," Mr O'Connor said.
He said members of the public continued to make malicious calls despite the NFA's concerns over the issue.
He said the authority's capability to attend to real fire emergencies would be affected if they were attending to prank calls.