With no causalities this year, the fire and rescue services recorded 152 calls across the state and 61 from the city on Tuesday. The state witnessed one of the safest Deepavali celebrations this year. According to a senior officer, 151 calls were for small fire and one was a medium fire caused due to crackers. “In 2017, 229 calls were received from. It has come down mainly because of the Supreme Court’s guidelines which restricted bursting of crackers only for two hours,” said the officer.
The calls were received by the fire department from 6 am to 11.59 pm on Tuesday. “Among the districts, Chennai topped the list by receiving 46 calls which was more than last year’s 37 calls,” said the officer.
The most numbers of calls were received from south Chennai, central Chennai received about 17 calls, north Chennai received 12 and five calls were from the suburban areas.
“There were two fake calls and eight rescue calls. Of the 46 calls, 23 were related to fire due to ground crackers and 23 from sky crackers.”There were no reports of grievous injures so far. Meanwhile, the officer attributed the preparedness and lesser traffic in the city for an improved response time.
A total of 500 vehicles and over 6,000 personnel were deployed across the state. A senior fire and rescue officer said, this year many people said no to crackers for various reasons including pollution and safety for pets, which could also be a reason for fewer calls.