Fire crews were called out twice in the early hours of the morning to reports of house fires in Acomb, York.
But on both occasions, they turned out to be hoax 999 calls.
On each occasion, both Acomb and fire crews responded to the alleged emergency.
The first call came at 12.44am to reports of an oven fire in Acomb.
Two hours later, at 2.56am, they got another callout. A North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service spokesperson said: “Crews from Acomb and York responded reports of a house on fire at a different address to the above.
“This resulted in a false alarm due to a different hoax caller.
“Details were passed over to police to investigate with a connection to the two hoax calls.”
On the fire service website it says: “Hoax calls endanger the lives of others – if a fire crew is attending a hoax call they are not available to attend a real emergency.
“All emergency calls taken by our fire control room are recorded, this includes the caller’s number and caller location based on mobile GPS. Any call that we find out to be a hoax call will be passed onto North Yorkshire Police.
“Hoax calls cost the fire service millions of pounds each year, but worse than that they cost people’s lives”
It warns anyone who is prosecuted faces a fine of up to £5,000 or six months in prison.