Beyond Carlton' calls for NCRB fire data double-check

Urges verification with hospital records, fire department and burns registries to ensure reliable statistics

- EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @Bengaluru

OFFICE bearers of Beyond Carlton, a citizen-led initiative focused on fire safety, questioned the accuracy of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, which claims a sharp decline in fire accidents over the decades. They urged for cross-verification with hospital records, fire department, and burns registries to ensure reliable statistics.

"From 22,788 cases in 1996, incidents peaked at 27,976 in 1999, averaging 23,000 annually until 2014. However, numbers dropped drastically to 7,566 in 2022. While this suggests a downward trend in fire incidents and deaths, the data accuracy needs to be verified," said Gopal Devanahalli, Trustee, Beyond Carlton.

In 2022, there were 7,435 fatalities due to fire accidents as compared to 27,561 in 1996. On average, women comprised 60 percent of all fire-related fatalities. There is a clear need to double-check on the data collection process and the assumption modes. Triangulation using other data sources like burn registry, hospital data, fire department call centre data will help us confirm the progress that the numbers indicate, Devanahalli said.

"While the number of LPG connections has doubled from 14.52 crore in 2014 to 32.83 crore in 2024, fire deaths from LPG-related incidents have decreased by over 50 percent. While there have been serious efforts by distribution companies to create fire safety awareness, this reduction deserves closer scrutiny. A non-uniform re-classification of the raw data may have caused this. More than 50 percent of the causes are categorized as 'other causes', which suggests a need for better forensic capabilities in the investigation team," RA Venkitachalam, Trustee, Beyond Carlton, said.