Alert and agile firefighters doused multitude fires across TG State: DG Nagi Reddy

Hyderabad: The Telangana Fire Services and Disaster Response Force attended 7,383 fire and rescue calls during the year 2024 across the State, Director General, Fire Services Department, Y Nagi Reddy, said. He stated that of the total fire calls, 7,093 were small fire mishaps and 180 were medium, while 87 were related to serious fires and 24 were major fire mishaps.

“There is an increase of 5.9 per cent in medium fire calls in 2024 compared to the previous year, while the overall fire calls are nearly the same as last year,” the Director General explained. He further mentioned, “99 per cent of the fires are in non-high-rise buildings.”

The Fire department was regularly organising fire safety awareness programmes. A total of 8,433 programmes were held across the State this year.

The Fire wing had participated in several rescue missions during the floods in different parts of Telangana.

“We reached out to people stranded in flood water during the night also and brought them out to safer places. The department is training its personnel in firefighting as well as rescue operations,” said Nagi Reddy.

The department was also taking up prosecution of building owners where major fire mishaps have been reported. “The police are conducting criminal investigations and filing charge sheets while the fire department is following the civil prosecution,” he said.

He highlighted that the GHMC was issuing notices to residential buildings from where commercial activity is allowed. He clarified that the fire mishap at the Satava building at Madhapur was due to gas leakage. “The fire on the fifth floor of the Satava building at Madhapur was because of gas leakage in the restaurant. Due to a power fluctuation, there was a short circuit, and it sparked off the fire,” said the official. The fire was contained well in time by the intervention of safety officers of the building and fire department personnel.