BY CIARAN WOODS

A STRABANE fire crew made a pointless early morning trip to Derry last week, with the city without fire cover for the 15 minutes until their arrival, all because of a hoax call, it has been revealed.

The Strabane crew were called in after all of Derry's available fire fighters and appliances were called to a hoax house fire where it was claimed people were trapped inside.

SUPPORT

The Fire Service this week revealed that up to 42 fire personnel and other emergency officials were tied up in the hoax call last Friday night.

Station Officer William Lynch revealed that the calling in of the Strabane units to Derry is quite a common occurrence, but assured Strabane residents that they are not left without cover in their own town, with support called in from Castlederg to provide cover.

"We would always leave fire cover in Strabane, it's never left without cover.

"If both appliances are taken from Strabane, then cover is taken in from Castlederg to cover Strabane.

"We treat every call as totally genuine until such times as we are certain that it's a hoax.

"We've highlighted the case of this particular false alarm in a bid to let people know just how many people this affects.

"In this instance, we had to mobilise all three appliances down here, which then meant Strabane had to be called in as cover.

"The Strabane appliance was somewhere around the town boundary here in Derry when it got word that it had been a false alarm and we turned them back," he said.