FIRE crews are fighting hoax callers by refusing to attend fires they know to be malicious.

In the North-East, individual fire brigades were struggling to cope with the number of hoax calls, which officers say waste valuable time and money, and put people's lives at risk.

Emergency call handlers are now using a Caller Challenge system to weed out as many of the hoax callers as possible, without running the risk of failing to attend real fires.

Dave Turnbull, of Durham and Darlington Fire Brigade, said the North-East had one of the worst track records for hoax calls, with each call costing the tax payer £1,100.

He said that in 2001 there were 2,500 hoax calls made to the fire service in County Durham, this reduced to 910 the following year and was down to 546 last year, thanks to the new system.

He said: "These hoax calls take front line fire appliances away from their real job of tackling fires and saving lives, that's why we have taken such a tough stance on this."

Caller Challenge means emergency call operators who believe a caller is a hoaxer can challenge them and give the caller the opportunity to hang-up.

The brigade can also disconnect mobile phone sim cards belonging to offenders.

Since adopting the policy, Durham and Darlington Brigade has chosen not to attend 408 hoax calls, saving the tax payer almost £450,000.

Mark Whelan, director of operations and community safety at Cleveland Fire Brigade said Cleveland had been using the system for 18 months and hoax calls had been reduced by 50pc.

He said: "We can't afford to take the risk of getting it wrong, so there are ways of making sure there is not a fire."

Operators can see where every caller is ringing from, which can help to identify hoaxers. They also know that a caller from Redcar reporting a fire in Hartlepool is probably a hoaxer, coupled with the fact multiple calls are normally received about genuine fires, which can also be an indicator.

He said that not attending the hoax calls gave fire officers more time to carry out fire prevention work and other work in the community educating people about fire safety.