20160601 India Traffic police documents gutted in fire
India May 31 2016 “Warehouses”
Dead : dead 0 or unknown Burnout : 0 or unknown Injured : injured 0 or unknown
Traffic police documents gutted in fire
Updated: 2016-06-01-05:22
Documents and furniture kept in the store room of the traffic branch of the Pune police at Magarpatta Chowk in Hadapsar were gutted in an early morning blaze on Tuesday.
Fire brigade officials attributed the cause of fire to a short-circuit. “The office of the crime branch unit five located just above the store room, however, remained unharmed,” they said.
Besides damaging the walls and electric wiring, the fire also gutted receipt books, temporary licence books (LTMs), fancy number plates, bandobast orders, plastic chairs, drums, barrels, bookshelves, books, cupboards and traffic safety material kept in the room.
The incident came to light around 2am after the thick black smoke emanating from the room started entering the servant quarters of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) adjacent to the room. The residents immediately alerted the fire brigade, following which two fire tenders were rushed to the spot.
The firemen had a tough time controlling the fire. Initially, they tried to control it by spraying water from outside, but all in vain. Thereafter, they broke three window panes, the front and rear locks of the room to gain control over the blaze. However, this did not help either since the huge stock of documents kept in the room had caught fire by then.
Considering the enormity of the blaze, more fire tenders along with water tankers were pressed into service. The firemen surrounded the store room and sprayed water from all sides to finally douse the fire around 11.55am.
“A motorbike parked behind the store room was also destroyed in the blaze,” the officials said.
They added that servant quarters, which are located adjacent to the store room, remained unharmed.
Hadapsar fire brigade station duty officer Shivaji Chavan said, “We had a tough time controlling the fire since the store room was packed to capacity with voluminous documents and waste material. We broke the doors and windows of the room while pressing five fire tenders and three water tankers into service for dousing the massive blaze.”
A traffic constable, who was present at the spot, said, “The store room, comprising one small and two large rooms, is maintained by the traffic branch of the Pune police. It was packed with documents and waste material accumulated over the years. The room is locked most of the time and opened only for dumping bundles of papers collected from the traffic branch and its divisions once or twice a month.”
Kishore Chavan of the PMC quarters said, “My son Rupesh woke me up from sleep early in the morning to inform me that thick black smoke was emanating from the store room. In the meantime, other residents of the civic quarters too woke up and rushed to the room to take stock of the situation. We immediately alerted the central fire brigade station on its emergency number, following which fire tenders rushed to the spot and started their fire-fighting operation.”
When contacted, police officers told TOI that most of the documents gutted in fire were old and not required in the day-to-day functioning of the traffic police.
“They had piled up in the store room for years altogether,” they claimed.
Web Source: THE TIMES OF INDIA
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/Traffic-police-documents-gutted-in-fire/articleshow/52529517.cms