Diwali fire accidents in India: what the data shows and how to stay safe

Diwali falls on 8 November 2026. Every year the same news arrives the next morning: so many fire calls overnight, so many burn cases in the hospital, so many children with eye injuries. We went looking for the actual numbers, with the department or hospital that gave them, and this page puts together what we could open and check. It is not a national count of Diwali fires, because India does not publish one, and we say clearly which cities and years we found and which we did not. Checked 5 November 2026.

In short

• Delhi’s fire service reported between 117 and 318 fire-related calls on Diwali night in the five years from 2021 to 2025, with the highest figure in 2024 (318, reported as the highest in 13 years). The counting windows differ from year to year, so the years cannot be ranked strictly.
• Most of these calls are small fires from crackers, diyas and rubbish. In 2023 and 2025 the reports mention no casualties from them. The danger is the one small fire that reaches a stall, a godown or a house.
• Burns and eye injuries are where Diwali shows up in hospital figures: 252 burn cases in five Delhi hospitals in 2025, 190 firecracker and carbide-gun eye injuries at AIIMS Delhi, and 908 injured in Tamil Nadu on Deepavali day.
• Official guidance is simple: light crackers one at a time in an open space with a bucket of water or sand, wear cotton and closed footwear, never hold an anar in your hand, and cool any burn under running water for 10 to 20 minutes.

What we found, city by city

Delhi: fire calls on Diwali night

The Delhi Fire Service gives a count to the press every Diwali. This is what was reported, with the date of Diwali and the way each count was made:

• 2021 (4 November): 152 calls in all, of which 117 were fire-related and four were suspected to be from crackers (PTI, 5 November 2021).
• 2022 (24 October): 201 fire-related calls, as mentioned in an ANI report of 2023 that compared with the year before. We found only this one report for 2022.
• 2023 (12 November): 208 fire-related calls, 22 of them caused by crackers; no casualties were reported. The big fire of the night was at Sadar Bazar, where 24 fire tenders were sent (ANI, PTI).
• 2024 (31 October): 318 fire-related calls, mostly between about 5 pm and 5 am, which the Delhi Fire Service chief called the highest in 13 years. Akashvani quoted him saying more than 300 calls and no major fire, because the force had been increased for Diwali. As Diwali was marked on two days that year, the Delhi Fire Services director also told ANI that the service took about 320 calls on 31 October and about 400 on 1 November (reported by the Free Press Journal).
• 2025 (20 October): 269 calls counted till midnight, said a Deputy Chief Fire Officer, and around 400 by 6 am the next morning, said another official (Akashvani, ThePrint, Tribune). No major accident with loss of life was reported. Staff leave was cancelled and tenders were kept at key markets.

Please read the 2024 and 2025 numbers with care. Several outlets wrote that 2025 was about 15 per cent lower than 2024 (318 to 269), but the 2025 count was till midnight and the 2024 count ran to about 5 am, so they are not like for like. Two reports also gave different numbers for how many of the 2025 calls were caused by crackers (81 in one, 122 in another), so we do not print either. For what Delhi and other city fire services arrange for the night, and how you can help them, see our page on firefighters on standby this Diwali.

Hospitals: burns and eyes

• Delhi burn cases, Diwali 2025: the Tribune, quoting hospital officials, reported 252 burn injuries across five hospitals over the festival days. Safdarjung had 129 (118 from firecrackers, 11 from diyas, 24 of them children under 12, nine needing surgery), AIIMS 55 within 48 hours, GTB 37, DDU 16 and LNJP 15.
• Eye injuries at AIIMS Delhi: the Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences treated 190 firecracker and carbide-gun eye injuries in the 10-day Diwali period of 2025, against 160 in 2024. Nearly 45 per cent were open-globe injuries, about 60 children needed surgery and 97 patients (51 per cent) were hurt on Diwali day itself (IANS, 29 October 2025).
• Anar is the cracker to respect: at the National Burns Centre in Mumbai, about 8 in 10 burn injuries come from anar (fountain) crackers, its doctor said in an advisory reported on 18 October 2025.

Tamil Nadu and Gujarat: ambulance and hospital counts

• Tamil Nadu, Deepavali 2025: health department officials counted 908 burn and injury cases from crackers, 584 treated as outpatients and 324 admitted, with 85 major and 380 minor surgeries and 93 patients needing eye treatment (DT Next, IANS). The 108 ambulance service handled 261 fire and burn calls on Deepavali day, against 26 on a regular day (DT Next).
• Gujarat, Diwali day 2025: the 108 service recorded 58 burn cases statewide (Ahmedabad 17, Surat 8, Jamnagar 5), with burn cases up 53 per cent over normal days (DeshGujarat and Gujarat Samachar, both quoting EMRI data). The same report listed fire-service counts in four cities for different windows (Ahmedabad 122, Rajkot 125, Surat 126, Vadodara 39). We do not add them up because the windows differ.

The national figure, and what it can and cannot tell you

The National Crime Records Bureau’s Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India 2024 lists accidental fires caused by fireworks as a cause on its own. For 2024 it shows 110 cases, 112 persons injured and 134 died. It also lists fires in factories making combustible materials, including cracker and matchbox factories: 66 cases, 107 injured and 91 died. These are full-year figures, not Diwali figures, and they depend on what states report to NCRB, so treat them as a floor. Our page on NCRB fire deaths and injuries for 2024 has the wider picture.

What these numbers do not say

• No single national count exists. We found no national or all-state figure for fire calls or fire deaths across Diwali. Everything above comes from one city or state, and one department or hospital, at a time.
• Windows and definitions differ. “Calls” may mean all emergency calls or only fire calls, and the count may stop at midnight, 5 am or 6 am. The Delhi series is the best we have and is still not like for like.
• A call is not a fire and not a casualty. Delhi’s reports say most calls were minor blazes. Hospital counts include children hurt by sparklers, which never reach a fire station.
• More places exist than we could find. We found no usable Diwali counts for Kolkata and Bengal (Kali Puja), Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Uttar Pradesh or Rajasthan from a source we could open. We also found no figure for fireworks-factory accidents from the explosives regulator.

Where the fires start

The pattern in the reports is ordinary. Safdarjung’s burn cases were mostly crackers, with a few from diyas, and the Delhi calls were mostly small fires from crackers and diyas. The serious ones on our case pages are about storage and crowding, not about one child with a sparkler: crackers and rockets going off at a roadside stall in Surat during Diwali week, a firecracker-storage fire in Hingoli, crackers stored above a garment shop in Ludhiana, the house blast in Siwan and the Vellore godown blast. Our guide to illegal home firecracker units and cracker storage explains why a stock of crackers at home or above a shop is the real hazard, and the Nagina coach fire, where cracker material was found shows the same risk on the move. Another reminder came on 5 November, when a blast at a firecracker godown in Nagaur, Rajasthan, in a built-up part of the city, killed two people; the cause is not yet established.

How to stay safe, from the official guidance

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s trauma and burn division published Guidelines for Safe Handling and Use of Firecrackers in India in 2026, and the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO) lists do’s and don’ts for fireworks. These are the points we would act on:

1. Buy from a registered seller, and use recent stock. The guidelines say old or unbranded crackers behave unpredictably. Store them away from any flame in a cool, dry place, and never carry them in your pocket.
2. Light them in a wide open space, away from buildings, people and flammable material, and not in a narrow lane where vehicles are parked.
3. One cracker at a time, by an adult. Use a long phooljhari or candle and keep your arm straight. Keep a bucket of water or sand ready and wear closed footwear.
4. Never hold an anar in your hand, and never light a cracker under a glass or tin container.
5. Clothes matter. Avoid loose, flowing or synthetic clothes while lighting, and tie a dupatta back. Do not light diyas on the floor of the house or on stairs.
6. Do not go back to a cracker that did not go off. Pour water or sand over it and leave it. Do not pick up spent crackers barehanded.
7. Anyone with asthma or a breathing problem should stay indoors when smoke is heavy. Our page on an asthma or allergy attack in smog covers the first minutes.

Check your city’s order on which crackers and which hours are allowed before you buy; our Diwali crackers guide carries the Supreme Court position for 2026.

If someone is burnt or a fire starts

• Fire: call 101 or 112 and get everyone out. If clothes catch fire, the person should stop, drop and roll, or be smothered with a blanket; see clothes on fire.
• Burn: hold it under cool running water for 10 to 20 minutes, take off rings and bangles before swelling starts, and cover loosely with a clean non-stick dressing. Do not apply ice, toothpaste, butter, oil or home remedies, and do not break blisters (MoHFW guidelines).
• Go to hospital for a burn on the face, eyes, hands, feet or groin, any burn larger than the person’s palm, any burn in a child or an older person, and any burn with breathing trouble.
• Eye: flush with clean cool water for 15 to 20 minutes, keep the lids open, do not rub, and get to an eye specialist. The full steps are on our firecracker eye injury and burns page.

What not to do

• Do not buy crackers from an unlicensed seller or keep a stock at home or above a shop.
• Do not let a child light a cracker alone, or hold a sparkler close to a baby.
• Do not make or use a carbide gun. AIIMS reported 18 to 20 carbide-gun eye injuries among its 190 cases, and the MoHFW guidelines warn against homemade fireworks.
• Do not put toothpaste, haldi, ice or cow dung on a burn.
• Do not light crackers in a lane with parked vehicles or under wires and balconies.

Do these today

• Save 101 and 112 on your phone. Our page on the fire brigade number says what to tell the operator.
• Put a bucket of water and a bucket of sand where you will light crackers, and keep a thick cotton blanket nearby.
• Decide who lights and who watches, and where the children stand.
• Read our Diwali crackers, burns first aid and kids guide and the festival home fire safety checklist for lights, LPG and sweets-making.
• If you are travelling for the festival, read the night driving plan for returning from a function, and our page on road accidents during Diwali for what the ambulance data show.

What we could not confirm

We could not find a national count of Diwali fires, fire deaths or burn cases, and no official all-India figure for Diwali week. For Delhi the numbers are fire service statements as reported by news agencies and newspapers; we did not see a fire service document. The 2022 figure rests on one report. We could not settle the number of Delhi cracker-related calls in 2025 because two reports differ. The Gujarat and Tamil Nadu counts are ambulance and hospital data as reported by newspapers, and we did not see the original statements. The NCRB figures are full-year numbers from the 2024 report and depend on state reporting. We found no Diwali counts we could open for Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Uttar Pradesh or Rajasthan, and no PESO figure for fireworks-factory accidents. Diwali 2026 has not happened yet, so there are no 2026 numbers; this page will be updated if departments publish them. This page is general information, not medical or legal advice.