Extinguish fires yourself: city fire chiefs

The fire departments of The Hague, Amsterdam and Rotterdam are calling on citizens to first try extinguishing fires themselves over New Year's before calling the fire department. This is because they are too busy during the turning of the year to help everywhere, De Telegraaf reports. "A burning Christmas tree in the middle of the street can not do much harm", a fireman said to Omroep West earlier this week. "It is only dangerous if it is against a car or a house. A burning trash can? Let it burn, within a few minutes it will go out by itself." In the major cities, fire department calls are now taken over by the police force. The fire department is too busy over New Year's and wants to focus on truly dangerous fires. "All of our employees are on the road 24 hours and have almost no time to eat because they are constantly busy." said a spokesman of the fie department in Amsterdam. On a normal day the fire department in The Hague gets around 70 reports of fires. But over New Year's the sometimes get up to 1,500 reports in a few hours. According to the fire department, there are lots of fires that people can extinguish themselves with water or sand. "Obviously we need to be alerted when there are people in danger or if cars could catch fire", said a spokesperson for The Hague. "When in doubt, you should obviously call."