Greensburg firefighters say they're tired of racing to calls that turn out to be nothing. They say nearly one in five alarms they respond to is false, and now the city's ready to crack down on property owners who don't fix the problem.

"These guys are taking and looking at every alarm as an actual fire because you can't just sit there and think, 'this is the same old false alarm, we're just going to take our time,' because minutes count," said Greensburg Fire Department Chief Thomas Bell.

From faulty sensors to programming glitches, Bell says some addresses keep calling them back over and over.

"I'm not going to mention the building, but on Pennsylvania Avenue, we were responding probably once or twice a day to the same fire alarm," he said.

"We were going there two, three times a day for a solid week until we finally got the property owner to do something about it," he added. 

In the past year alone, Greensburg firefighters answered 177 false alarms. That's one every other day, and each time, as many as seven trucks and crews are called out.

"It's crying wolf. The guys get to the point where they just don't want to do it no more, especially when they hear the same alarm time in and time out, and it puts the general public at risk," Bell said. 

City council wants to fine repeat offenders $250 for commercial buildings and $100 for homes if they rack up multiple false alarms in a month or year. If they ignore the problem, the city could pull the occupancy permit or place a lien on the property.

"We're not just going to go out and start handing fines out right away. We're going to tell you, 'hey, look, you need to get this taken care of,'" Bell said. "That's all we're looking for, you help us to help you," he added. 

The bill is set to be introduced at Monday's city council meeting. If the ordinance passes, it will go into effect Jan. 1.