Dangerous harmonies: Is there a hidden villain in India’s devastating electrical fires?

Just after 3.48 a.m. on May 3, 2026, fire ripped through a four-storey building in Vivek Vihar, East Delhi, killing nine. The suspected origin was an AC blast or short circuit. Ten newborns died in an overcrowded Jhansi NICU in November 2024, a unit meant for 18 babies packed with 55. Three newborns in Amravati this August, dead not from flame but from smoke inhalation, even though the fire itself was out within 30 minutes.

One newborn in Chhindwara two days before that. Ten patients at Cuttack’s SCB Medical College this March, when a short circuit in a trauma-ICU air-conditioner ignited an oxygen-rich ward at 3 a.m. Fire accidents in India used to happen in industrial units, firecracker factories and mass gatherings. No more. The more devastating ones happen right in our neighbourhoods, in hospitals and high-rises.

They are almost always triggered by electrical fires. Delhi Fire Service attributes over 80% of the capital’s fires to electrical faults. Mumbai Fire Brigade, analysing 26,855 incidents over five years, attributes nearly three in four to the same cause.