Distress calls to Fire and Rescue Services down by 77

Of these, 46 such calls were from Chennai, said sources. Compared to last year, the control room received lesser calls this time around. “In 2017, there were 229 calls from across the State, which has come down to 152. This could be due to the Supreme Court guidelines, which restricted bursting of crackers only for two hours during the Deepavali day,” noted a TNFRS officer. The statistics showed a 33 per cent reduction in fire accident calls in this year’s Deepavali compared to last year.

Of the 152 calls received this year, only one was serious – a medium size fire caused by crackers. The rest 151 were all to report small fires. These were the calls that the Fire Department received from 6 am to 11.59 pm on Tuesday. Within the State, Chennai topped the list with 46 calls, higher than last year’s 37 calls, said the officer.

The officer attributed the preparedness and lesser traffic in the city for an improved response time. A total of 500 vehicles and 6,000 personnel were deployed across the state.

Despite this, a student of Class 7 died and two others suffered injuries while firing locally made ‘cracker bombs’ in Coimbatore on Tuesday. There were no reports of other fatalities.

In 2016, 650 fire accidents caused by fire crackers were recorded in the State on Deepavali day. Of these, 141 incidents were registered in Chennai district alone.