India, Oct. 19 -- In the early hours of 31 May 2016, a fire broke out in a shed at the Central Ammunition Depot in Pulgaon, near Wardha in Maharashtra. The shed held sensitive ammunition. The depot's firefighters did what they were trained to do: they ran towards it.

By the time the blaze was confined to that one shed, 16 people were dead. Two were Army officers and one was a jawan. The other 13 were civilian firefighting staff, the depot's own fire crew. Six more of their colleagues were injured.

Ten years on, that toll still captures the oldest rule of firefighting: someone has to go in first. Someone has to get close enough to find the seat of the fire, judge whether the structure will hold and decide where the water should land. In ...