FIRE AND rescue services in Fife and Tayside receive nearly 500 hoax calls each year, according to shocking new figures.

Tayside Fire and Rescue said malicious calls were “the scourge of the emergency services” and that by diverting resources away from real emergencies, lives were being jeopardised.

According to the most recent figures available, for the year ending September 30, 2006, 317 fake calls were made to Tayside Fire and Rescue—nearly one a day.

However, the figure is down 4% from the 331 hoax calls made in Tayside during the previous year.

Fife Fire and Rescue Service received 182 hoax calls in 2005-06, down 25% from the 244 the year before.

A spokesman for Tayside said, “Malicious calls are the scourge of all the emergency services and the consequences of these calls can be tragic.

“These calls are not only a waste of fire service resources; they put the lives of firefighters and members of the public at risk.

“They increase response times and can place lives in great danger.

“During genuine emergencies, time is important and even one minute could be the difference between saving a life and losing one.”

He added that they had been working closely with BT and schools for several years in a bid to reduce the number of hoax calls.

“Although this work has continued to see a year-on- year reduction in the number of these calls, these figures highlight that considerable work still needs to be done,” he said.

Nationally, there were 5305 fake calls made to fire services across Scotland, down 11% from the 5958 hoax calls made in 2004-05.

The figures, released in the Fire Statistics Monitor, show that the picture in Tayside has improved considerably since 2001, when 487 hoax calls were received —nearly 10 a week.

The statistics also show there have been reductions in the number of fatalities and casualties in fires in Tayside.

In 2001, nine people died in fires in Tayside and 214 were injured. By 2005, the number of fatalities had dropped slightly to seven while casualties had fallen to 126, almost half the number there had been four years previously.

There were four fatalities in Fife during 2001 but six in 2005 although the number of casualties per year dropped from 99 to 94 during the same period.

The figures come in the same week that it emerged nearly two thirds, 64%, of all fires in Tayside are started deliberately.