FCC

Retrofitting India’s Occupied Buildings: A Fire Wake-Up Call

2026-02-24

In 2023 alone, Mumbai recorded 4,721 fire calls. Over the past three years, the city has seen nearly 13,000 fire incidents. A significant majority of these cases have one recurring thread: electrical faults, overloaded systems, concealed fire spread and buildings that were simply not designed for the way they are used today.

India’s biggest fire vulnerability is not in the buildings yet to be constructed. It lies in those already occupied –residential towers built 10-20 years ago, mixed-use properties with incremental modifications, and commercial assets that have undergone multiple retrofits without holistic upgrades...