I began writing this piece after breaking news flashed on my laptop: a nine-month-old infant had been burnt alive after being engulfed in a major fire at an iron dye manufacturing unit in Mohali’s Sector 5 industrial area on Monday, 30 June 2025. Heart-wrenching though the news was, I hoped it would be an isolated accident.

It was not to be.

Soon, I was left counting the dead, the maimed, and the severely injured, along with the massive destruction of property caused by a spate of fire-related disasters.

Between 30 June and 8 July 2025, at least 18 major fire incidents have been reported across 10 states. More than 60 people have died, and at least as many have sustained serious injuries. Here is a sample of the reported incidents:

These accounts present only a curated sample of the fire-related disasters reported over the past week. Even this limited snapshot reveals a staggering toll: at least 60 lives lost, over 50 people seriously injured, and crores of rupees worth of property reduced to ashes.

No one in India precisely knows the exact number of fire accidents that occur daily, monthly, or annually, simply because the country lacks even the most basic tools to record them: a fire registry or a burn registry, either at the central or state level.

Fire services in India are classified as a municipal function (under the State List) in the Twelfth Schedule of the Constitution, under Article 243. Unfortunately, municipalities lack both the infrastructure and the capacity to prevent fires — or to effectively contain them once they break out — particularly in a rapidly urbanising India.

Unsurprisingly, within the municipal governance setup, fire accidents seldom receive the attention or urgency they demand.

Given this context, the incidents I have chronicled so far are merely the tip of the iceberg. The true scale of fire accidents occurring daily across the country is deeply disturbing, with massive collateral damage and a tragic human cost.

Based on this limited yet chilling account of recent fire incidents, a few preliminary conclusions emerge:

It is impossible to explain every single fire accident. Nonetheless, here is an explainer of a few recent incidents — some of which turned fatal, and others that were near misses, narrowly avoiding disaster by sheer luck.

1. Palace Queen Humsafar Express Engine Fire

This fire, which occurred while the train was in motion, was reportedly caused by a technical fault in the locomotive. Had the flames reached the diesel tank or other compartments, hundreds of passengers could have perished. It was a near miss that had the potential to turn into a major catastrophe.

The incident reminded this writer of one of the worst train fire disasters in Indian Railways history — the Patna train fire of May 1990, which claimed 74 lives and injured hundreds. After the Patna tragedy, Indian Railways should have........

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