Delhi received highest emergency calls this Diwali since 2012: Fire department

The Delhi Fire Services (DFS) on Friday said their control room received the highest Diwali-related emergency calls, including fire incidents, on October 31, breaking all previous records on Diwalis since 2012. A data shared by the DFS shows that their control rooms received 318 emergency calls, including 280 related to fire incidents, between 5pm on Thursday and 5am on Friday. The last time the fire control room received the highest number of such calls was in 2015 when 290 emergency calls were received.
Last year’s Diwali, the fire control room had received 208 such calls, meaning there was an increase of at least 110 calls this year’s Diwali as compared to last year’s. In 2022 and 2021, the number of emergency calls were 201 and 152 respectively. An analysis of the data shows that the number of emergency calls received by the fire control room this Diwali has been more than double the number of calls received in 2021.
DFS chief Atul Garg said that of the 318 emergency calls, at least 144 were received between 12.01am and 6am on Friday. There were at least three serious fire incidents of “Make 4” category that were received from Kalkaji in south Delhi, Nirman Vihar in east Delhi, and Mangolpuri in outer Delhi.
The exact number of deaths and injuries caused in fire and other mishaps during Diwali this year was not immediately known, the fire department officials said, and added that they were in the process of collecting the data regarding the casualties.
Earlier this week, the DFS had said that they were deploying fire tenders at 23 locations across the city on Diwali eve (Wednesday) and Diwali (Thursday) in order to ensure that fire incidents were addressed quickly and no serious mishaps occur during festivities. Apart from the fire trucks (tenders), the fire department had also planned to deploy motorcycle-borne firefighters equipped with portable fire extinguishers, also known as “water mist backpacks” at nine different locations on the night of Diwali for rapid firefighting action in congested neighbourhoods that have narrow lanes – where larger fire tenders cannot reach.