A FIRE brigade which has been plagued by faulty automatic alarms at hospitals, military barracks and sheltered housing has said it may not attend non-domestic places responsible for regularly wasting firefighters' time.

As part of a drive to cut costs, North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service said from April 1, it would also not attend alerts at places with automatic fire alarms where people do not sleep from 8am to 6pm, unless a fire has been confirmed.

Automatic fire alarms, which are installed at places ranging from offices to students' halls of residence, provide early warnings of possible fires and enable people inside buildings to evacuate.

While the brigade has rescued five people over the past five years from fires initially reported as an automatic fire alarm, it said last year it attended 1,907 calls triggered by bogus fire alarms, of which 323 were at military barracks, 235 at hospitals, 169 at sheltered housing and 184 at student halls of residence.

The faulty alarms accounted for around 24 per cent of all its incidents and cost more than £200,000 per year in direct on-call staff costs and 6,000 hours of time for its full-time crews.

It said it would also reduce the number of fire engines attending some automatic fire alarm alerts and that one fire engine would attend premises where people sleep and other high-risk premises, such as heritages site or manufacturing plants at all times.

The brigade said blacklisting a premises where there are repeated false alarms would be an option of last resort, after talking with the responsible person.

A brigade spokesman said: "Alternatively, and with the agreement of the owner or occupier, an attendance may still be made but a charge may be levied.

"We will still attend automatic fire alarms at domestic premises and all incidents where a fire has been confirmed."

The brigade said the changes would save about £80,000 a year in direct staff costs and would free a further 2,000 hours of staff time.

Group Manager Peter Hudson said: "Attendance at these false alarms means that fire service staff and resources are not available to attend fires or other emergencies, or are taken away from essential training or community safety work."

Chairman of North Yorkshire Fire Authority, Councillor John Fort added: "I don't think people need have any fear about what is being done - it is business as usual."

North Yorkshire Fire Brigades Union was unavailable for comment.