Hyderabad: 2-hours slot to make work of fire staff tougher

Hyderabad: During Diwali celebrations in 2017, about 27 fire mishaps were attended to by the fire department. Most of the calls were from Hyderabad district. Four major incidents of fire took place in 24 hours in connection with the Diwali celebrations.

According to data available with the State Disaster Response and Fire Services (SDR&FS) department, firefighters responded to 12 emergency fire calls between 9 am on October 19 and 9 am the next day in Hyderabad last year. In addition they responded to two calls from Ranga Reddy, one emergency call each from Medak, Adilabad and Nizamabad, three from Warangal and Nalgonda, and four from Karimnagar. The Karimnagar fire was a major one. 

The Supreme Court order restricting the bursting of crackers to two hours, may be excellent in  terms of curbing noise and air pollution, but police and fire department officials say it may also cause more damage. 

“Earlier, people used to burst crackers at different times for two days. Now, with the new law restricting the time to two hours, the bursting of crackers takes place at one go, which may lead to unfortunate incidents and the damage could be more. It may also make it tough for firefighters to attend to so many calls in those two hours,” a police official told this newspaper.

Director General, Fire Services, M. Gopi Krishna said “So far, no information has been received regarding the timing of bursting crackers. However, the entire force of the department will be on duty to attend emergency calls on the day of the festival. Personnel have been conducting massive awareness campaigns on fire safety measures. The public will be given a detailed list of do's and don'ts to avoid untoward incidents.”