Being confronted by congestion and narrow lanes delaying the movement of fire tenders in city the fire and rescue services department plans buy smaller vehicles. The department has sent a proposal for procuring 15 such vehicles, called one-tonners, which will have the capacity to fight fires for 10 minutes as against the 30 minutes-capacity of the present, bigger fire tenders. “It is crucial to fight a breakout of fire early; otherwise it could get out of hand because of delays.

Though larger fire tenders come with bigger tank capacity, they take longer to reach the accident spot due to traffic on the roads. R.Natraj Director –general of police said that sometimes the sheer size of the tenders proves to be a disadvantage. One-tonners can man oeuvre through the traffic and access narrow lanes faster, thereby minimizing damage till the bigger tenders take over. Huts and crowded residential areas with narrow streets were more vulnerable to fire accidents than others and moreover it is not just the delay which is worrying the firemen but also the reaching time it takes to reach the accident spot.
 
When a fire tender is unable to approach close to the spot, the very efficiency of fire-fighting goes down. “When we fail to take fire tenders close to a spot, we attach extra hoses to transport the water. Veeramani divisional fire office says that the 15-metre-long hoses can hold up to 60 litres of water. If we attach 10 extra hoses to reach a spot 150 metres away from the fire engine, more than 600 litres of water remains in the pipe and this reduces water pressure. Chennai saw 24 deaths in fire accidents last year, which caused damage to property estimated over Rs 6.72 Crore. The saved property worth of Rs 33.24 Crore and 49 precious lives during the same period.

True to their name the firefighters risk with their lives in order to save others lives. The city deserves small and faster tenders to negotiate in to the narrow roads and by lanes of the ever growing Chennai city.