A major fire was reported at a private warehouse in Wadgaon Sheri’s Sopan Nagar on the Pune Ahmednagar Highway on Thursday.
About 10 LPG cylinders kept inside the warehouse exploded, causing loud noise and a massive smoke, creating panic among the residents. No casualties were reported in the incident.
However, teams from the Fire Brigade of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMDRA) brought the situation under control after a rigorous firefighting operation for about two hours.
A press release issued by Devendra Potphode, Chief Fire Officer of the Pune Fire Brigade, read that their control room received a call regarding the fire at the warehouse in Wadgaon Sheri around 11.58 am.
Immediately, 15 fire tenders along with eight fire officers and 60 firemen were deployed to the the warehouse, which was full of plastic material and other scrap items. Fire officials confirmed that there was nobody inside the warehouse at the time of the incident, and the firefighters extinguished the blaze using their equipment.
About 10 LPG cylinders had exploded at the spot. JCB machines were pressed into service for clearing the scrap, and the firefighters moved people residing in nearby tin sheds as a preventive measure.
Senior fire officers Ramesh Gangad, Gajanan Pathrudkar, Vijay bhillare, Subhash Jadhav and PMRDA Fire Officer Vijay Mahajan coordinated the fire fighting operation that went on till about 2 pm.
Thereafter, the cooling operation was carried out.
“Fire officials and firefighters worked skillfully in such a dangerous situation… some cylinders had exploded at the private warehouse spread over a few thousand square feet area. Cause behind the fire was not yet ascertained. No casualties took place,” according to Chief Fire Officer Potphode.
Worker injured in godown fire in Kondhwa
In another incident, a fire was reported at a private scrap godown at Tilekar Nagar in Kondhwa on Thursday evening. After receiving information, a team of the Pune Fire Brigade comprising five fier tenders and two water tankers rushed to the spot. Firefighters moved five acetylene and 12 LPG cylinders to a safer spot, thus preventing explosions. Fire fighting operation went on for about an hour.
Fire officials said that a worker identified as Tukaram Sathe (45) was injured in the incident.
