Prague’s New Year: Fewer fireworks, but a busy night for paramedics

If you ask the police, New Year’s Eve in the Czech capital was a relative walk in the park. If you ask the paramedics, it was a sprint.

As the smoke clears on the first morning of 2026, two very different pictures of the night have emerged. While law enforcement celebrated one of the calmest years in recent memory regarding illegal fireworks, the city’s ambulance service was running ragged, dealing with a surge in calls that outpaced last year’s numbers.

Emergency crews responded to 303 incidents over the night, a significant jump from the 251 calls logged in 2025. The real rush hit after midnight, with ambulances dispatched to 170 locations before sunrise. According to the Prague Emergency Medical Service, the night was not defined by explosions, but by the familiar toll of alcohol, drugs, and accidental falls.

Despite the chaotic workload for ambulances, the city’s strict ban on pyrotechnics in the historic center appears to have delivered a major safety victory. Medics treated only two blast-related injuries, a sharp decline from nine the previous year. However, the danger was not entirely absent. One of those incidents involved a critical, life-threatening hand injury caused by high-power pyrotechnics.

For the police, the narrative was far more positive. Spokesperson Jan Rybanský described the celebrations as one of the quietest in recent years regarding pyrotechnics. While the silence held for most of the evening, the midnight countdown inevitably broke the spell in Wenceslas and Old Town Squares.

Officers patrolling the crowds moved quickly to intercept illegal fireworks, catching nearly 40 people in the act. The police noted that the vast majority were foreign visitors, likely unaware of the city’s strict ordinances protecting heritage zones. These revelers were handed on-the-spot fines totaling over 60,000 Czech crowns.

Aside from the noise control, the night saw typical holiday infractions. Plainclothes detectives detained two pickpockets in the city center just before midnight, and officers fined a drone pilot for violating airspace regulations over the crowds.

So while the city’s UNESCO-protected architecture survived another year unscathed, the human toll was heavier than usual, leaving the city with a mixed report card for the start of 2026.