A major fire that started on Saturday night at a multipurpose storage facility near Pune, which had huge stocks of edible oils, medical supplies and paper products, was brought under control after an 18-hour high-risk operation on Sunday afternoon.
While no casualties were reported, a crew of 50 firefighters faced an uphill task due to the oil storage and local factors like lack of ventilation and approach routes to the blazing areas of the godown. Five fire tenders from the Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) and Pune City were rushed to the spot.
The blaze broke out at the storage in Wadki village, around 25km from Pune, and had a total of four large compartments operated by four private entities. These areas had huge stocks of edible oils, ghee, homecare products, medicines, masks and paper products.
Local police and fire brigade officials said a short circuit in one of the storages might have caused the fire. The officials added that while the incident was reported to the fire brigade control room around 9 pm on Saturday, they suspect the fire to have broken out sometime before.
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The firefighting operation concluded around 3 pm on Sunday. For the next three hours, the firefighters conducted a cooling operation at the premises to make sure that there was no secondary fire.
PMRDA Fire Chief Devendra Potphode said, “The fire started sometime before 9 pm on Saturday. The storage facility was huge, and as time progressed, more and more stored materials went on catching the fire. There was lack of ventilation inside the facility. The access routes to the blazing areas were very difficult to navigate through. There was also shortage of water locally and we had to ferry water from far-off places. We used large quantities of foam to douse the flames. It took around 18 hours for us to control the fire.”
