GB Nagar in May logged five-year high in no of fires

Noida

The Gautam Budh Nagar district, this May, clocked a five-year high in the number of fires, at 405, propelled by rising temperatures and subsequent overloading of electrical infrastructure, officials of the fire department said. This was over twice the number of fires recorded in May 2023, at 198, according to the fire department data.

Officials said the fires were mostly reported in air-conditioners (AC), moving cars, factories and dumped dry branches and leaves.

“In the past two months, fires increased due to a rise in temperature. People are continuously running their ACs, which eventually loads the electrical wiring and causes a short-circuit. Some similar cases of fire in ACs were also reported in the district,” Pradeep Kumar Chaubey, district chief fire officer, said.

The number of fires recorded in May was 340 in 2019, 158 in 2020, 142 in 2021, 214 in 2022, 198 in 2023 and 405 in 2024, according to the fire department data.

Asked how firefighters were coping with record fires and temperatures, Chaubey said: “We are continuously rotating shifts within half-an-hour as body temperature shoots up when they reach the fire during the summer. A few firefighters had reported itching and breathing issues. We advised them to increase the use of jaggery and ORS.”

Officials said that at least 10 incidents of AC fires were reported in the past two months, while a car caught fire on Monday due to a short-circuit in the AC blower. “Fire at high-rises is a challenging task for us as the use of lift is not advisable when fire breaks out, so we have to use stairs to reach the 10th or 17th floor,” Chaubey said.

From January to May, 1,210 fires were reported in the district, with 121 cases in January, 136 in February, 182 in March, 366 in April, and 405 in May, according to the data. In comparison, 744 fires were reported in the first five months of 2023.

A total of 8,601 fires were reported in Gautam Budh Nagar from January 2019 to May 2024.