Firefigthers across the country had a consistently busy New Year´s Eve
The municipal emergency services moved out with the fire trucks 409 times during New Year's Eve.
The New Year 2025/2026 was therefore "usually" busy for the 29 municipal primary emergency services that move out when the alarm goes off.
During the 409 fire responses, 114 incident commanders and 1,047 firefighters were at work on New Year's Eve, according to the Danish Emergency Services' own count, and the efforts across the country included, among other things:
- 75 building fires, of which at least 45 were in residential buildings.
- 166 fires in containers and garbage cans
- 16 car fires, which is on a par with the previous year.
- 41 wildfires
- A single collision with a train (Frederiksborg Fire and Rescue), as well as three drowning accidents/rescue efforts in water
- 52 times firefighters had to drive off to alarms from automatic fire alarms (ABA)
New Year's Eve has always been a busy evening and night for the emergency services, and it was again at the transition to 2026.
"We have had a 'normal' busy New Year's Day, with about four times as many efforts as on a weekday – but roughly average busy for a New Year's Day," said Bjarne Nigaard, Head of Secretariat at Danish Emergency Services, early New Year's morning.
He emphasizes that this year there have been proportionately more building fires than in previous years. Virtually all of these fires have certainly occurred as a result of fireworks. The precise causes must now be analysed.
"Unfortunately, it was not this New Year that we completely avoided shelling the crew with fireworks, but fortunately we have only registered three cases in the whole country, a single case in East Jutland and two in West Zealand. In one of the cases in West Zealand, the police had to go in with shields to ensure extinguishing," says Bjarne Nigaard.
As usual, the country's emergency services had called in extra personnel this year as well, so there were more firefighters and incident commanders on duty.