Delhi Fire Service Faces Staff Crunch Of 1,001 Personnel, RTI Shows 523 Firemen Posts Vacant

Key points

• Delhi Fire Service Faces Staff Crunch Of 1,001 Personnel, RTI Shows 523 Firemen Posts Vacant Reported By, Edited By Last Updated: June 03, 2026, 10:23 IST Delhi has witnessed major fire incidents in recent months, claiming at least 45 lives this year, according to DFS records Rapid Read On May 4, a devastating fire ripped through a residential building in East Delhi's Vivek Vihar, killing nine people.
• The Delhi Fire Service (DFS) is operating with 1,001 vacancies against a sanctioned strength of 3,633, data obtained by News18 under RTI shows.
• Of the 1,001 vacant posts, more than half, 523, were in the firemen or fire operator cadre, data shows.
• In a reply to News18 under the Right to Information Act, 2005, the data shared by DFS shows that as of April, the vacancies account for about 28 per cent of the department’s sanctioned strength, suggesting that nearly three out of...