Daily Times

The Director General Punjab Emergency Service Dr Rizwan Naseer has said that Fire Rescue Service responded 15590 fire emergencies and saved estimated loss worth Rs 58 billion due to timely response and professional firefighting across Punjab in 2020. The review of fire emergencies also highlighted that Fire Rescue Service is managing an average 43 fire incidents daily in Punjab and short circuits, negligence and carelessness have become leading causes of fire emergencies. He emphasized on implementation of Building Code of Pakistan – Fire Safety Provisions – 2016 to reduce the risk of fire incidents.

He expressed his views during annual performance review meeting of Fire Emergency Response held at Rescue Headquarters here on Wednesday and senior officers of Rescue Headquarters and Emergency Services Academy attended this review meeting. DG Rescue Punjab said the purpose of this detailed review of fire incidents was to identify any shortcomings in firefighting and sensitize authorities concerned to prevent such emergencies in future.

During the meeting, Head of Operations Mr Ayaz Aslam presented the yearly report of fire emergencies which shows that 79 people died in 15590 fire incidents in Punjab in 2020. Compared to 2019 there has been a decrease of 2789 fire emergencies in the number of fire emergencies. The data further revealed that the causes of fire emergencies which include 7348 fire emergencies due to short-circuiting, 1009 owing to gas leakage, 3201 due to carelessness/ smoking, 41 due to candle burning, 103 due to LPG cylinders blast, 139 due to Kitchen fire, 136 due to Forest Fire, 1129 due to unknown reasons and 2484 fire incidents occurred due to other multiple reasons.

According to the official statistics, the majority of fire incidents occurred in major districts which includes 3460 incidents in Lahore, 1531 in Faisalabad, 1115 in Rawalpindi and 914 in Multan.