Kolkata Fire and Emergency Safety Guide

In April 2025, 14 people died in the Rituraj Hotel fire at Mechuapatti in Burrabazar, most of them from smoke, and a few jumped from upper floors. In August 2026, nine guests died at a hotel on Mirza Ghalib Street, right next to the fire brigade headquarters, where survivors spoke of a narrow entrance and no proper fire safety equipment.

In December 2011, a fire that started in the basement of AMRI Hospital, Dhakuria spread smoke through the wards, and the toll was put at about 90. Most of the dead were patients, many of them in the ICU, who died of suffocation rather than burns.

In January 2026, a night fire gutted warehouses at Nazirabad near Anandapur, and the toll reached 19 within two days, with more workers missing. Fire officials said the godown had no fire safety clearance, and workers were sleeping among plastic flowers, wood and cloth when it started.

Burrabazar and Canning Street have narrow lanes and multi-storey markets packed with stock. In September 2018, the Bagree Market fire burned for more than 30 hours and destroyed over 400 shops, while firefighters struggled with locked shutters and short water supply.

KMC keeps a ward-by-ward list of waterlogging pockets because heavy rain floods the same roads year after year. On 23 September 2025, 251.4 mm of rain fell in less than a day, and nine people in the city died of electric shock.

When Cyclone Amphan passed Kolkata in May 2020, winds reached 133 kmph at Dum Dum, and a KMC official said almost 200 trees fell across the city. Power cuts and mobile and internet outages hit large parts of Kolkata.