"They get a warning for the second one, and only on the third alarm if it cannot be identified why there was another false alarm," he said.
He said the charges were to discourage false call outs, and to "encourage maintenance and keeping the fire alarm systems up to date".
Mr Easton said sometimes the fee was waived if businesses had spent the same amount on fixing and updating their fire alarm system.
He said fire risk officers worked with businesses to help reduce false alarms, and to provide support so owners could have a better understanding of fire safety.
National risk management advisor Todd O'Donoghue said false alarms were time consuming, resource-heavy and dangerous.
"False alarm calls have a huge effect on our resources," he said. "Also, every time we respond under lights and sirens for a false alarm, there are risks for our firefighters and the community when we're responding with urgency on the road."
Mr O'Donoghue said a false alarm call in smaller cities and towns where brigades were volunteer-run could pull people out of work for no reason.
"Once again, false alarms are putting a bigger cost on the community itself because a lot of employers are dropping staff numbers to go attend these callouts."
Mr O'Donoghue said the charges should not be considered fines, but were an incentive to reduce false calls. He said whenever a building owner found the cause of the false alarm and fixed it, the fire service often would not charge for earlier false callouts.
"It's not about us making money from false alarms. It's more an incentive to make them pay for any repairs and maintenance that they need doing to prevent false alarms."
Nationwide, the fire service attended 18,650 false alarms last year. It has charged $23.9 million over the past five years, including $4.8 million last year.
A 2006 report estimated the cost of false alarms to the fire service was $44.7 million a year.
