Delhi Fire Control officials say drop in calls

Whether the cracker ban reduced pollution or not, it certainly reduced the number of calls received at the Delhi Fire control room by around 16 percent. Fire officials said that even during peak hours, when the control room receives the maximum number of calls, there was a dip of 35 percent during these hours calls as well.

The Delhi Fire Department received the least number of calls in the last four years this Diwali. Officials from the fire department said that they on Thursday received 204 calls compared to 243 last year.

A fire official said that the lesser number of calls this year could be attributed to the cracker ban as well since the calls received this year were largely for normal fires and not for crackers. Out of the 204 calls received, only 51 were related to fire-crackers but no one was injured. This was a change from last year where cracker incidents has caused serious injuries and fatalities

The only major fire that occurred was at a cloth godown in East Delhi wherein in 26 fire-tenders were rushed to the location in order to douse the fire. The fire was reported around 10pm and no one was injured in the incident.

"Even though there were some people bursting crackers, the fire related calls due to that were not many. There was a house collapse in Outer Delhi in which three were injured and a fire in a house as well but none were due to fire-crackers," said a fire official.

The Capital has around 60 fire stations but keeping in mind the festive season, 28 temporary fire stations were also set up.