Delhi fire service gets 30 calls in 10 hours

You could blame it on the rising mercury level - the Delhi fire service number has not stopped ringing since early Thursday with the department receiving 30 calls of fire incidents from across the city until 10.30 a.m.

"Since midnight until now we have received 30 calls of fire incidents across the city. Generally fire incidents increase when the mercury level rises and these days the temperatures have been very high," a fire department official told IANS.

"Most of the incidents are of electrical fire. There are some which are caused in garbage dumps. We have also started getting calls on short circuits inside cars and buses," the official added.

Wednesday's fire in a plastic scrap market in west Delhi's Mundka area, which required 30 fire tenders to douse the flames, was still being tackled.

"We have sent two fire tenders to the scrap market to cool off the place today (Thursday)," the official said.

He, however, complained that the fire service was understaffed and was struggling to handle so many incidents across the city.

"We are seriously understaffed. There are just a handful of us and we have to rush with the fire tenders, sit in the observation room and take calls and do all kinds of other work. This morning things have been so bad that I haven't had the chance to even have a glass of water!" the official said.

In an interview with IANS earlier this month, Delhi fire chief R.C. Sharma had said: "We recruited around 400 fire fighters last year. We currently have 1,242 vacancies, for which around 3,000 people have cleared written exams and are waiting for physical tests."