The Bengal Fire and Emergency department has launched an awareness drive on fire safety through drills and to inform people about the precautions to take if a fire breaks out.

The campaign, which kicked off on 5 May in Calcutta will run for a month until 5 June. Teams from the department will travel to various locations carrying equipment and will demonstrate how one should respond to a fire.

The demonstrations are touring shopping malls, hospitals, hotels, office buildings, industrial units, petroleum outlets and in crowded locations in and around the city of Siliguri.

Bhaskar Nag, the officer-in-charge of the Siliguri fire station, said during the campaign, they will also conduct fire audits at these sites to determine whether the places have adequate fire-fighting equipment and arrangements to evacuate people.

“We are carrying out mock fire drills, which include evacuation exercises. Also, during our visit, we are training people, for example, employees of industrial units and security men of shopping malls, as to how they should douse a fire,” he said.

The department is also promoting the need to keep adequate fire extinguishers in hotels, hospitals, schools, colleges, offices, markets and factories, and will for employees of petrol pumps it will conduct a separate training “as we cannot have on-site demonstrations at a pump.”