Hundreds of students evacuated from Portsmouth's Catherine House after '˜malicious activity'
Firefighters from Southsea Fire Station were called to the building, on Stanhope Road, after numerous fire alarms in the building were ‘maliciously activated’.
The station’s crew manager, Rob Gargaro, said his team were tied up at the scene for two hours, with their time and resources wasted.
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Hide AdHe said: ‘We got the call just after 4.30am. The building holds about 900 people and roughly 300 were outside.
‘We searched the building from top to bottom to ensure there was no fire.
‘Someone had maliciously activated numerous fire alarms throughout the building, which showed up on its systems.
‘All the time we were tied up there it was a waste of our time and resources.
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Hide Ad‘We’re not able to attend genuine incidents when things like this happen.’
Three of Southsea’s pumps attended the incident.
Catherine House opened in 2017.
Crew manager Gargaro said the building’s security guard was present, and that a review into CCTV footage is due to be conducted.
He added: ‘Hopefully we can find who did this.’
Last month, components of a ‘suspicious device’ were discovered by workers at the student residence, sparking a police alert and controlled explosion of the material.