LAKEVILLE – At the Special Town Meeting on Monday, Nov. 13, voters will decide on new proposed fines related to fire alarms. Fire Chief Michael O'Brien said that the new by-laws would help combat the large number of false fire alarms that the Lakeville Fire Department receives.

O’Brien said that the time spent responding to false fire alarms makes it more difficult for the fire department to perform other services. “When we’re in our fire trucks our ambulance is empty, so this is definitely a public safety issue,” he said.

There were “203 false alarms and malfunctions so far this year,” O’Brien said at the Sept. 18 Lakeville Select Board meeting.

“That’s a lot of false alarms in one year,” Select Board member Lia Fabian remarked.

The fines for false alarms would only apply to multifamily residential buildings as well as commercial and industrial sites if approved at Special Town Meeting. If approved, properties that have more than three false alarms within six months will be subject to a fine. 

The proposed by-law also creates new rules about how fire alarm systems can communicate with the fire department, such as requiring building owners to receive permission from the fire department before conducting certain types of equipment tests.

According to data from the Lakeville Fire Department, during the year of 2022 the department received 296 false fire alarms in total.

Of the 296 false alarms, the largest category — representing 103 false alarms or 35% of the total — were from one or two family dwellings.

Fourteen of the false fire alarms were from high schools, junior high schools, and middle schools, according to the data. Forty of the false alarms were from multifamily dwellings. Various types of shops, businesses, and industrial sites were also common sources of false fire alarms.

The most common reason for a false fire alarm was “system malfunction, other” with 53 false alarms, according to the data. The other two most common categories were “alarm system sounded due to malfunction,” with 47 false alarms, and “smoke detector activation due to malfunction,” with 43 false alarms.

“This is nothing more than a tool for compliance,” O’Brien said of the proposed by-law. “It’s not really my mentality or my practice to hammer people with fines and write tickets. But sometimes the existence of that ability compels people to do what they have to do.”