Over Rs 3 crore lost in 163 vehicle fire incidents in 4 years in Nagpur

NAGPUR: Two back-to-back fire incidents involving MSRTC buses recently have exposed lack of maintenance of vehicles, mostly government owned/operated, plying on roads.
Data obtained from Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s fire and emergency services department reveals that in the past four years, 163 cases of four-wheelers, buses and other vehicles catching fire have taken place.
Total loss in these incidents was to the tune of over 3 crore, said officiating chief fire officer Rajendra Uchake. He explained that vehicles tend to catch fire either because of neglecting service requirements, defective accessories, or loose electrical connections.
The data compiled by the department also revealed that there were 140 calls related to vehicle fires in the last four years. There were many fire incidents which claimed more than one vehicle, he added.
As per the data, almost three incidents of vehicle fire were reported every month in 2022-23. The fire department had attended to 34 vehicle fire calls in 2021-22 as against 38 in 2020-21. At 54, the highest number of fire incidents in all ranges of vehicles was reported in 2019-20, said the officiating chief fire officer.
Though no separate data of vehicle-wise fire was available with the department, firemen said most of the calls were either related to buses owned by Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation or managed by Nagpur Municipal Corporation.
In 2022, three fire incidents in Aapli Bus fleet were reported. Uchake said vehicle fires occur because of issues like fault in electrical circuits, overheating of cables or sparks igniting fuel vapours etc.
Earlier, such issues were mainly observed only during summer season, but now vehicle fires are becoming common, said Uchake, adding because of rising temperatures, use of air-conditioners in vehicles zooms up thus increasing load on several components, at times causing overheating. If the vehicles are not maintained properly, such overheating, coupled with atmospheric temperatures, lead to fire.
The department, however, claimed timely action by its firefighters armed with fire tenders had managed to save properties (vehicles) worth over 2.28 crore.