Five suffer burns while bursting firecrackers

HYDERABAD: Fire services personnel were on their toes with denizens celebrating Deepavali on Wednesday bursting crackers.Twenty-one fire accidents were reported in and around the city sparked from firecrackers, officials said.More than 110 fire-fighters with 12 fire tenders were pressed into service to control the fires.According to officials, the first of the distress calls started around 11.20 a.m on Tuesday and reports of mishaps arising out of Deepavali celebrations continued till 8 a.m on Wednesday.Fire services officials, however, said the number of accidents have come down this year and attributed it to increase in awareness among the general public.The property loss in the mishaps is yet to be ascertained.“With bursting of crackers being the most important part of celebrations, fire mishaps are common.Every year we get at least 50 calls but this time the numbers have come down,” an official said.Most of the mishaps happened when rockets and other fancy crackers fell on houses where some inflammable material is stored.At some places, scrap and abandoned material including dried coconut tree branches caught fire due to rockets. At Himayathnagar, a shed on the terrace of a two-storeyed school building caught fire.The shed, used to store electronic goods was covered with fibre sheets which caught fire damaging the goods.The fire control room received calls from Vasavinagar in Karkhana, Moghalpura, Kukkatpally, Malkajgiri, Bakaram, Banjara Hills, Bowenpally, Karmanghat, Tarnaka, Mehdipatnam, Madhapur, Hasthinapuram, Manohar theatre, Secunderabad, Shalibanda, Himayathnagar, Gowliguda, Amberpet and Pathergati.Though there were no fatalities, five persons suffered minor burns