The Fire and Emergency Services Department in the city is battling a depletion of its vehicle strength owing to the rule of the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways deregistering all government vehicles that are 15 years or older, and putting them to scrap.
As a result, the Fire and Emergency Services have a nominal number of vehicles to cope with any emergency as a majority of the fire brigade trucks have been withdrawn from services.
This is expected to cause severe disruption in services during peak summer when fire emergency complaints tend to be high. Sources said that in Mysuru alone there are 10 vehicles sanctioned to cater to the city of which 7 have been withdrawn and at present only three can be deployed at any given point of time. In case of multiple incidents of fire, the response time will be longer, according to the sources.
‘’Though vehicles have been procured, they have to be fabricated at different places outside Karnataka and it may take about eight to 10 months before the new vehicles are deployed and the full strength is restored,” sources added.
What is concerning is that the fire services are off the road in the run up to the fire season when the Fire and Emergency Services Department receives the maximum number of calls. As many as 40 calls of fire emergency has been received during the last one month in Mysuru city alone in the run up to the summer and these numbers are set to rise. During the height of summer season from February through April/May, the department tends to receive not less than 20 calls per day pertaining to fire outbreak. There are concerns that in the absence of vehicles, it will not be possible for the authorities to cater to all calls on a timely basis.
A majority of the complaint pertains to deliberate kindling of roadside trash and dry biomass including plant litter that tends to pile up during the onset of summer.
It is common practice for the pourakarmikas of the Mysuru City Corporation as also the local residents to set plant litter on fire. But the fire tends to go out of control during summer and spreads rapidly resulting in an emergency.
A case in point is the fire repeatedly being kindled on the CV Road in Bannimantap area and the fire and emergency service personnel receive multiple complaints of fire, from the same area.
‘’The fire is man-made and deliberate as no matter how many times it is doused a new complaint is received on the same day,” the sources added.
In view of the diminished capacity of the Fire and Emergency Service Department to handle fire outbreaks due to the paucity of vehicles, the authorities have appealed to the public not to stoke fire or torch dry leaf litter and help avert any emergency.
