The city has seen a rise in total incidents of fire and the major ones since 2016-17, according to the data from the Mumbai fire brigade.
Mumbai saw 95 major fires in 2018-19, a jump from 80 in 2017-18, and 46 in 2016-17.
The total number of fires recorded in 2018-2019 is 5,427, compared to 4,805 in 2017-18 and 4,907 in 2016-17.
The Mumbai fire brigade categorises fire calls into five categories based on the intensity – level 1 (small), level 2 (medium), level 3 (major), level 4 (serious) and a brigade call.
This is part of the standard operating procedure (SOP) set in place by the fire brigade in 2016, after a fire at Gokul
Niwas in Kalbadevi led to the death of four senior fire brigade officers, including then chief fire officer Sunil
Nesrikar.
The SOP mainly helped the fire brigade determine how many fire engines and water tankers will attend to the fire, and which senior officer has to join the disaster response.
Level four and brigade call require the chief fire officer to be part of the fire-fighting operations.
{{/usCountry}}Level four and brigade call require the chief fire officer to be part of the fire-fighting operations.
{{/usCountry}}The fire brigade has attributed the rise in serious fire calls in the past three years to rapid urbanisation, and reasons such as increase in traffic on the streets, parking on either side of the roads, narrows existing lanes, redevelopment of old buildings.
A senior officer from the Mumbai fire brigade said, “The main problem is traffic and parking. A fire increases in intensity when it cannot be responded to in time. Even a 30-second delay in fire-fighting can lead to a rise in the intensity of the fire.”