A total of 2,552 fire calls have been received by Delhi Fire Service this summer from April 1 to April 24 surpassing the figures of previous year when 1,439 fire calls were registered during the same period. Just last week (April 18 to 24), over 863 fire calls were reported. Whereas last year, only 574 fire calls were registered during the same period.
Since April 21, over 100 calls related to fire are received by the fire department every day. During the same period last year, the number of calls constantly remained below 100. It must also be noted that the Capital’s temperature is constantly exceeding40 degrees Celsius over the last week.
According to a senior fire official, usually they record 60-70 fire calls per day across the year. However, in peak summer months, it goes to more than 250 fire calls in a day.
The senior fire service official told The Pioneer that the fire incident at National Museum of Natural History in the wee hours of Tuesday is one of the severe/serious fire incidents of this summer season.
Citing high temperature as main reasons for the increased incidents of fire in the summer, the official said: “When the temperature reaches 40 degrees Celsius, it is obvious that fire reports will be frequent. But when the temperature goes beyond 42 degrees Celsius, rise in temperature by one degree increases the frequency of fire calls by ten.”
Not only the hot summer days are at the risk of high intensity fire, during Diwali festival, fire office receives at least 250-300 fire calls per day. However, in normal summer days, fire office reports about 150 fire calls daily. In winter months and spring, the fire incidents get reduced with 60-70 calls per day.
The Delhi Fire Service is nodal agency for providing rescue operation at the fire spot. Entire Delhi is divided into 18 sub-divisions and every sub-division has four to five fire stations. Accordingly, there are 58 fire stations throughout in Delhi.