Excelsior Correspondent
BHADERWAH, Nov 16: Six multi-storied residential wooden-roof houses and two commercial buildings were gutted here today in a devastating fire at Green Colony area of Chinnote Panchayat.
Locals of the area claimed that the fire could not be controlled for four hours due to the inefficiency of local fire tenders which resulted in loss of property worth crores.
Initially the fire erupted from Food Lab restaurant at 4 am and soon it spread to adjoining buildings having wooden roofs after an LPG cylinder exploded.
The blaze spread rapidly as roofs of these structures were made of highly inflammable dry cedar wood. Click here to watch video
“Fire tenders are located just one km from the incident site yet it took half an hour for two fire tenders to reach the spot and that too without water and petrol for pumps to lift water from adjoining Nullah,” said Khalid Bashir Mughal, Sarpanch Chinnote adding: “Due to this poor preparedness of fire tenders the blaze engulfed adjoining buildings.”
SSP Doda, Abdul Qayoom who was on the spot supervising fire extinguishing operation said, “After coming to know about the fire incident, police reached the spot immediately to assist Fire and Emergency Department personnel in dousing the flames. We also called fire tenders from Bhalla and Doda as the flames were spreading very rapidly.”
He further said that eight structures including two commercial buildings were gutted in the blaze but luckily there was no injury or loss of life.
DC Doda, Harvinder Singh who also visited the spot, assured enquiry into the matter.
Residential houses and commercial structures which were gutted in the fire belonged to Kuldeep Dutta (Food Lab Restaurant), Sajid Zargar, Shafkat Zargar, Mohd Latief Zargar, Mohd Iqbal Zargar and Abdul Rehman Zargar.
Meanwhile, Div Com Ramesh Kumar visited the fire incident site and assessed the damage, response to the tragedy by the concerned agencies, and the relief and rehabilitation being provided to the victims. He also inquired about the cause of the blaze.
He asked the ADC Bhaderwah to prepare a detailed report on the cause of the devastating fire and evaluate the preparedness and response by the Fire & Emergency Department and other stakeholders.
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