Tignish firefighters are fed up after a rash of nuisance calls

Firefighters in Tignish, P.E.I., have been dealing with a rash of nuisance calls lately that's exhausting crews and potentially delaying response times to those in real distress, says fire Chief Allan Gavin.

Everything from tire fires to hay bale fires, firefighters have responded to it all and Gavin said morale has taken a hit.

• 'It takes a certain breed': What drives P.E.I.'s volunteer firefighters
• P.E.I. firefighters had to camp 500 metres from Ontario fire

"It's tiresome after you work all day in this heat, then you get a call at 12 o'clock at night to go and chase down a hay bale and work a half hour trying to put that out," he said.

"In these dry conditions [you] hope that that's all that's burning when you get there."

Bales on fire

Nathan Profit of Profits Corner said some of his hay bales have been targeted.

"I have some older landowners that are calling me, a little nervous, because there's bales burning in their fields and they're a little nervous it's going to catch the field on fire and burn their homes," he said.

He's been working late to haul in the bales to keep them safe — he didn't get home till 3:30 a.m. Friday — because they're hard to replace, he said.

'Can't afford to lose any hay'

"We can't afford to lose any hay. Hay is hard to come by this year," Profit said.

"One bale is not a big deal, but if I lose a field or start losing 10 or 15, I gotta go buy it somewhere."

It's especially concerning because some of the bales are beside grain fields, which could go up quickly, Profit said.

'Foolish pranks'

Spending time chasing nuisance fires has the serious potential to delay response times "by a number of minutes," Gavin said.

That means the more "foolish pranks" people commit, the more people in distress could have to wait for firefighters to respond, he said.

If somebody really needs us we're not going to be available because we're going to be chasing something else.— Allan Gavin

"It's getting old fast," he said. "If somebody really needs us, we're not going to be available because we're going to be chasing something else."

Gavin said the department has had at least six to eight nuisance calls in the last two weeks and that he is meeting with RCMP to find a way to stop people from starting fires.

"Whoever is doing it, realize that they're hurting everybody when you're doing that," he said.

"Firemen are tired. We need our rest and there's people out there that need our help and we're not there because we're chasing down these foolish pranks."

More P.E.I. news