India, May 12 -- Every morning, Harinder Jeet Singh woke to the urgent clang of the fire bell echoing through the residential quarters behind the Connaught Place fire station. That bell, a sharp summons for fire tenders to rush into the city's chaos, was the background score of his childhood. Now 62, Singh was born and raised in those quarters, the son of Joginder Singh, a fireman in the 1960s who served in what was then still a young and evolving force.

Fire, he said, runs in the family blood.

In 1984, Harinder followed his father's footsteps into the Delhi Fire Service (DFS), joining as a young recruit and eventually rising to become a mobilising officer, stationed at the control room in DFS Headquarters. He retired two years ago, his...