Bulgaria's emergency number 112 took 37,090 valid calls between September 18 and 25 this year, the interior ministry's national 112 system says. That's 5.7% more than the same week last year.
Most calls — 13,803 — went to emergency medical centres. Fire crews got 3,281 calls, more than 50 of them from the village of Mihaltsi, in the Hisarya area, because of the fire there on September 23, the agency says.
On Thursday, September 24, 112 operators handled several fire calls at once. One was for a fast-spreading fire in dry grass and forest on the edge of Samokov, heading toward Dupnitsa on the road to the village of Belchin. Another call reported a burning field in the village of Vrachesh, in the Botevgrad area. A third reported grass, bushes and trees on fire next to road E772 near the village of Ryahovtsite, in the Sevlievo area.
There were 2,083 calls about road crashes, 9,737 about crimes against people, and 963 about crimes against property. Operators also logged 291 calls about accidents, 15 about household and industrial incidents, and seven about disasters.
Crews flew six air ambulance missions during the week. One helped a woman with a leg injury near the Sinanitsa hut in the Pirin mountains.
There were 51 calls about dangerous driving and street racing, 361 about lost or stranded people, and 14 about illegal migrants and refugees.
Operators also handled 19 cross-border calls to and from Spain, Romania, Germany, Poland, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden, which needed help from police or emergency services.
At 00:34 on September 21, an iPhone sent an automatic voice call reporting a crash. A car had hit a tree on the road between the villages of Borino and Chala in the Smolyan area, the interior ministry added.
The week before, from September 11 to 18, calls to 112 rose even more sharply — up 8.5% on the same period last year. There were 37,516 valid calls that week, the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency reports.