Delhi Fire Service received 257 emergency calls during Diwali in 2026, including 214 fire-related calls and 24 incidents involving cracker fires, while one person died and 11 people, including five firefighters, were injured across the city.
The call volume was lower than the 269 emergency calls recorded during Diwali last year and significantly below the 318 calls received in 2024. Delhi Fire Service chief fire officer Abhilash Kumar Malik said the highest number of calls this year came between 8pm and 10pm on November 8, when firefighters received 85 emergency calls.
A further 61 calls were received between 10pm and midnight. The department logged 16 calls between midnight and 7am, 36 between 7am and 2pm, 14 between 2pm and 4pm, 13 between 4pm and 6pm, and 32 between 6pm and 8pm on November 8.
The incidents included fires at factories, a godown, a banquet hall and residential premises. A medium-level fire broke out at two adjacent factories in Nangli Sakrawati at around 5.25pm on November 8. Later that evening, firefighters responded to a major fire at a factory in the Narela industrial area.
Another fire was reported at an NDMC godown beneath the Safdarjung flyover near Safdarjung airport. In the early hours of November 9, the department responded to fires at a banquet hall in Pooth Kalan, a residential apartment in Madhu Vihar, a factory at New Krishna School in Prakash Vihar, Karawal Nagar, and a shop at Chhota Bazar in Shahdara.
The department also reported injuries among personnel responding to the incidents. A station officer from Paschim Vihar suffered burns to his right hand while working at the Nangli Sakrawati fire. Another officer fractured his hand during firefighting operations at a godown in Libaspur. Other Delhi Fire Service personnel were injured during operations in different parts of the city.
The department said six members of the public were injured. A decomposed body was also found inside a house in the Haiderpur Plant area, according to a fire official. The source report did not establish whether the death was directly linked to a fire incident.
The department’s 12-hour peak call volume, covering Diwali evening and the early hours of the following day, stood at 281 calls this year. That was marginally below the 283 calls recorded in 2025 and lower than the 320 calls reported in 2024.
The longer trend shows that Diwali-related calls stood at 208 in 2023, 201 in 2022 and 152 in 2021. The latest figures indicate a reduction from the previous two years, although multiple industrial, commercial and residential fires continued to require emergency responses across Delhi. The Delhi Fire Service’s recorded response period extended into the early hours of November 9.
