Nana Chowk fire: ‘Fire broke out in just one room’

The state has announced that it will give a compensation of R5 lakh to the families of those who lost their lives in the fire. Pic/Bipin Kokate

The fire that claimed the lives of six, broke out in one of the rooms of flat number 1904 on the 19th floor of Kamla Building. The fire fighting system in the building was non-operational and the Mumbai Fire Brigade officials said they plan to send a notice to the building.

The building has ground plus 20 floors, with eight flats on each. The eighth and 14th floors are refuge areas and about 140 flats in the A wing. The wiring cable duct was badly gutted and an initial probe seems to point towards a short circuit. However, the exact cause of the fire remains to be determined.

"The fire was confined to one room and so, instead of turntable ladders we used hose pipes. We had breathing apparatus, and firefighters went from the staircase and doused the fire," said Hemant Parab, chief fire officer of the MFB. Another fire official said, "There were two people inside the room and three in the adjacent room who got trapped and were brought dead at the hospitals."

According to Parab, the entire building was smoke-logged due to a common duct running along the length of the building. There is a fire fighting system in the building, but it was dysfunctional, which is why we couldn't use it."