20210806 Fire in the dark: 8 garages & pvt office destroyed in flames
India Aug 06 2021 “Building” “Office bldg.”
Dead : dead 0 or unknown Burnout : 1 to 29 Injured : injured 0 or unknown
Fire in the dark: 8 garages & pvt office destroyed in flames
Updated: 2021-08-06
Nagpur: Eight four-wheeler garages, a private office, a pan kiosk and part of a house, four four-wheelers besides other mechanical tools and material estimated worth Rs1.5 crore were destroyed in a massive blaze in Kachipura, Ramdaspeth, in the wee hours of Thursday.
The incident took place at around 1.30am. It took more than an hour for six fire tenders from different stations and personnel from NMC’s fire and emergency services to douse the flames.
According to chief fire officer Rajendra Uchake, the reason behind the fire is not known yet. “Nobody was injured in the incident,” he said.
None of the police personnel was present at the spot though Nagpur city police crime branch office too is locate near it.
The chief fire officer further said that petrol and chemicals apart from parts of vehicles acted as fuel. The fire spread quickly as all the shops were set up in temporary sheds.
He said that the shops that were gutted included Rathore Automobile, New Nagpur Garage, Janata Garage, Hemant Cushion Works, Gajanan Welding Works, Gulzar Auto works, Vyas Auto Electric and Yuvraj Cushion Works. “Office of advocate Jitendra Rathore and part of residence of one Akshaylal Pande were also caught up in flames,” said Uchake.
Air compressors and cylinders at many workshops too were exploded in the fire.
According to Kachipura residents, the NMC’s fire department responded almost an hour late after the fire broke out at around 1.30am at Gajanan welding Works. Within minutes, the fire engulfed adjacent garages.
The fire department claimed to have received the call at around 2.28am.
According to a garage owner, the fire was first spotted by a passer-by who informed the police control room. But it took almost an hour for the fire brigade to respond, the garage owners said. “Had they acted swiftly, at least four automobile workshops and my office could have been saved,” said Rathore.
Rathore told TOI that he stays behind his office in Kachipura. “After being alerted I came to the spot at around 2am, when the fire was restricted to three garages. Due to the thick smoke, I could not enter my office and soon the fire engulfed it too. I helplessly saw my office turning into ashes,” said Rathore, who practices in district court and high court.
Most of the garage owners expressed suspicion over the cause of fire and ruled out short-circuit in any of the workshops as a possible reason. “We have made it a practice to switch off the main power whenever we close the garage,” said Mustaq Ahmed, owner of New Nagpur Garage.
Now, the garage owners are worried as the entire place has been destroyed. Most of them claimed that they had recently stocked up their workshops with spare parts worth lakhs. “We will also have to bear the loss of vehicles that were with us for repair works,” said Yuvraj Ingale of Yuvraj Cushion Works.
For security reasons, most of the Kachipura slum dwellers switched off all the domestic gas cylinders and kept them outside their homes. “Our entire family came out on streets carrying most of our important documents and other articles in case the fire spreads to the slums,” said Urmila Singh Rathore, one of the slum dwellers.
According to eyewitnesses, a major tragedy was averted as Kachipura is considered as one of the city’s biggest slums with a population of over 5,000 and the dwellings there are very congested.”
Web Source: The Times of India