On the eve of Deepavali, (November 3rd night), there were no fire calls from the public and on November 4th night only three calls from the entire southern region comprising nine districts were received, said Deputy Director (Fire & Rescue Services) N. Vijaykumar here on Friday.
Ahead of Deepavali celebrations this year, the Fire & Rescue Services personnel had organised 341 awareness programmes and demonstrations across the nine districts over the last 15 days.
There are 83 fire stations in south Tamil Nadu which comprises Madurai, Theni, Virudhunagar, Ramanathapuram, Sivaganga, Thoothukudi, Palayamkottai (Tirunelveli), Nagercoil (Kanniyakumari) and Tenkasi district.
With 28 fire tenders, nine District Fire Officers, 12 ADFOs and 78 Station Fire Officers and 1,252 personnel, the department created awareness and educated residents about safe methods of bursting crackers and fireworks.
Apart from mock drills held in educational institutions, the fire and rescue service personnel conducted demonstrations in market places, bus stands and railway stations. Pamphlets were distributed through volunteers and the fire control room number was popularised among the public, Mr. Vijaykumar told The Hindu.
The objective of the fire and rescue department was to prevent fire in any form and a proactive approach of positioning the fire tenders at vantage locations helped in reaching out to the spot swiftly.
Whenever there were calls, the coordination among officers and the personnel including the communication was quick, he pointed out.
This season, he said, there were only three calls regarding fire incidents, which too were minor. The personnel immediately reached and put out the fire. Investigations revealed that in all the three incidents, thatched roofs had caught fire after rockets had fallen on them.
Out of the 809 applications received for setting up cracker shops in southern Tamil Nadu, 672 were given licences and the rest were rejected, Mr Vijaykumar added.