Women firefighters to ensure public safety during Attukal Pongala festival for the first time

82 women firefighters on duty at Attukal Pongala festival, ensuring fire safety, medical assistance, and emergency services for devotees.

Firefighting, historically a male fiefdom, now has 82 women firefighters on their first Attukal Pongala festival duty tour.

The Fire and Rescue Services department has deployed 30 of the women force to ensure fire safety, shift devotees felled by heat exhaustion to hospitals, and provide emergency services within a 10 km radius of the temple.

The women entered for service in the department on Women’s Day in 2024 after a gruelling training period preparing them for physically risky activities, like riding on speeding fire engines, atop fire ladders, abseiling down high-rises, and breaking into blazing buildings and warehouses to rescue people. 

However, the Pongala presents a different challenge, given that the women officers have to span across 30 municipal wards that fall in the festival zone.

The streets are chock-a-block with devotees, equipped with kindling and pots to prepare the Pongala sacrament on open hearths on the roadside. Petrol pumps, warehouses, cooking gas depots and plastic awnings in front of shops present serious fire safety hazards.

“The women officers will patrol the festival area, scouting for potential fire hazards and warning devotees about unsafe practices if they notice any. An additional 30 women drawn from the department’s Civil Defence Force will assist the fire officers,” B.M. Prathap Chandran, officer-in-charge of the Fire and Rescue Services department’s special unit for Attukal duty toldThe Hindu. 

A.K. Rajendran, special officer, Fire and Rescue Services department, control unit, Attukal, said the force had deployed most women firefighters close to localities where devotees light the traditional lemon lamps.