Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Summer is around the corner, so is imminent rise in fire incidents, however, almost half of the fire trucks in the city are in a run-down condition, sending alarm bells ringing.
About three major fire incidents were reported in the city in the past fortnight along with a devastating blast that occurred in Bagh Mughaliya on Friday.
The situation has come to such a pass that the fire trucks deployed for dousing off the flames take a long time to reach the spot. As stated by the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials, the fire stations boast of a total of 32 fire trucks. However, almost 17 of them are in a run-down condition. Some of them are being utilised from the past 20 years, which is a gross violation of the fire safety norms, as no fire truck is supposed to be used beyond a period of 10 years.
Some of the fire trucks are in such dilapidated conditions that they do not start in times of need. Another concern that arises due to the utilisation of the dilapidated trucks is that they have a minuscule mileage figure to offer, which lies between 2 to 4 kilometres per litre of diesel.
It is noteworthy that there are eleven fire stations in the city, each having only three firefighters. The BMC officials also raised the concern of recruiting more fire fighting personnel to all the fire stations. The thin strength of the fire fighters is another grim issue, keeping in view that almost 1,200 fire incidents were reported in the city in the previous year.
City to get 2-3 new fire trucks
When contacted, BMC fire officer, Rameshwar Neel, said the fire trucks are, albeit, old, but are not in a run-down condition. He added that in a meeting chaired by the divisional commissioner recently, he directed to bring in two to three new fire trucks.
