Dera Bassi plays safe, no loss of life, property

Satinder Pal Singh

Dera Bassi, October 20

Learning from its mistakes over the past years, the Dera Bassi constituency succeeded in celebrating a safe Diwali this year as no major incident was reported from across the constituency wherein loss of life or property was recorded due to fire. 

The fire brigade office, located in Dera Bassi received nine calls asking for fire tenders to be pressed into action on Diwali night.

Officials from the fire department said they received first call at 11:45 am on Thursday where a minor fire was reported from Swastik Vihar, Zirakpur. A fire broke out in a plot lying vacant, said the sources. 

The fire department also received calls from Baltana village. However, these were minor incidents with no major casualty, said the sources.

The officials from the fire department said they received five calls between 8:50 pm and 3:55 am. In all the cases, the fire was controlled within 10 minutes. 

“We received a total of nine calls on the night of Diwali but no major fire incident was reported. Most of the calls received were about fires which broke out in empty plots,” said Fire Officer Manjit Singh.

A fire broke at two flats, one at Maya Garden Phase-III and Savitri Towers on the VIP road. A fire rocket fell inside the flat at Maya Garden due to which a fire broke out. No loss of life was reported but parts of furniture and other things got burnt, said the sources from the fire department. At few places, the residents had doused the fire even before the fire tenders could reach the spot. 

Manjit Singh said there was no doubt that people were being extra cautious about celebrating the festival in a safe manner. “Earlier, we used to receive a large number of calls regarding major fires breaking out due to a crackers being burst near inflammable items but that’s not the case now, thankfully,” he added.

The fire brigade had as many as 15 firemen working throughout the night to ensure that untoward fire incidents were controlled in time.  The fire department at Dera Bassi was equipped with three big fire tenders and a water boozer to attend to any fire incident in the Dera Bassi constituency.