HYDERABAD: The Fire Services Department has chalked out an action plan to set up more fire stations across the State, besides procuring the latest equipment to deal with any situation in case of a fire accident.

According to rules, there should be one fire station for every 50,000 population but the State has only one fire station for every three lakh population with a total of 252 fire stations. At the same time, the number of fire accidents has also gone up. "We are discussing the matter with the National Disaster Management Authority in coordination with the Andhra Pradesh Government," Fire Services Director-General A.K. Khan said on Monday. Efforts were on to procure new fire tenders replacing the 15-year-old vehicles.

Project report

A project report was prepared seeking the Central funds for procuring the equipment, he said. Focus was being laid to conduct training programmes for fire personnel.

The department attended 19,156 fire and emergency calls during April 2006 to March 2007 and saved the lives of 408 people and property worth Rs.1,318 crore. Krishna district stood no. 1 in the list receiving 2,232 calls followed by Guntur district (1,429), East Godavari (1,215), Nellore (1,138) and West Godavari (1,102).

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