The Delhi Fire Services received the highest number of emergency calls on Diwali-night in the last 10 years on Thursday, October 31. The department received a total of 320 calls on October 31 and November 1. So far, the Diwali night death toll this year has been recorded at three. Twelve persons were injured in various incidents on Diwali night, the Delhi Fire Services said.
The bulk of the calls were received between 6 PM and midnight. As many as 176 people called the fire department for help in these six hours. Of these, 84 calls were received between 10 PM and midnight, which was the highest this year. The fire department got 144 more calls between midnight and 6 AM on Friday.
While the fire department is primarily called in for fire-related incidents, it also gets calls for other help such as animal & bird rescue, accidents, etc. On Thursday night, it received 280 fire-related calls, 14 animal & bird rescue calls, 8 rescue calls, and 1 call to assist in the search and rescue operations in a road accident. It also got calls for special jobs and to be on standby for incidents.
Seven of 12 injured people got hurt in three incidents of fire at Gulshan Chowk, Vikaspuri, and Chawla. The rest were injured in a locked house.
Last year, the Delhi Fire Department received 208 emergency calls. The peak hours of the emergency calls were between 6 PM and midnight on November 12, 2023, when Diwali was celebrated, with 123 calls being attended to. Between midnight and 6 AM the next day, another 72 calls were received, taking the total to 195.
The previous record of calls to the fire department on Diwali was 290 in 2015.