Cidco starts fire drills at housing societies

After Kharghar high-rise fire incident, residents do not want to take any chances and approach fire dept to organise fire-safety lessons

In an effort to avoid incidents like Kharghar f ire accident, the City and Industrial Development Corporation ( Cidco) has started conducting fire drill in the housing societies of their jurisdiction.

So far, they have conducted drills in three high- rises at Kharghar and are planning to conduct the fourth one on February 27.

As many as five flats were gutted after a massive f ire broke out on t he f i f t eenth floor of Giriraj Apartments at Kharghar on January 27. The incident also revealed the town planning agency’s lethargic attitude towards its fire department. They don’t have a skylift to fight fires in high- rises.

Praveen Bodke, administrator of Cidco fire department said, “After the incident, several people came to us with requests to conduct such drill in their societies and we started doing it. The next programme is scheduled on February 27 at high rise at Kharghar.”

“It is however not possible to go every housing society to hold such programmes. Therefore we have decided to take one hall in an area and invite people from three to four nearby housing societies there. We will instruct them what to do when a fire breaks out in building and how to stay safe,” he said.

“We will also give them demonstrations so that they don’t panic during emergency. Two such programmes will be held every month. We have sufficient trained manpower for this job,” he added.

As of now, Cidco has four fire stations at Kharghar, New Panvel, Kalamboli and Uran with a total of 132 firemen and officers. They have constructed one more fire station at Ulwe and it is likely to be inaugurated by March end. This station will also cover nearby Donagiri and the peripheral areas.

Even as high-rises have come up to 24th floor have come up in the areas of Cidco’s jurisdiction, its skylift can reach up to eighth floor.

It is planning to purchase one skylift from Germany and another from Italy. While the first one will cost Rs12 crore, the second one will be for Rs8 crore. It takes almost seven months to make such skylift and those are not likely to come before nine months. Firemen douse fire at Bank of Maharashtra at Vashi on Thursday.

A fire broke out in the Vashi branch of Bank of Maharashtra on Thursday morning. While there were no casualties as it was nonbanking hour, property loss has been reported.

The fire broke out around 8am on the bank premises located at Sector 2 in Vashi.

Vashi fire officer Vijay Rane said, “We rushed to the spot on getting the fire call. Since there is a lot of wooden furniture on the bank premises, the fire spread fast.”

He added, “While the right side of t he bank was completely gutted, we managed to stop the f i re f rom spreading to the other side. Five fire t e n d e r s we r e pressed into service. They took around an hour to douse the fire and the cooling operations continued till afternoon.”

Rane said, “Prima facie, it seems the fire was caused by a short circuit. We are investigating into it.”

While the bank branch was shut for the day, other government offices, includi ng t he rationing shop l ocated in the building was affected due to the smoke.

In the morning, traffic had to been stopped on the one way road, as smoke engulfed the area.

BACHCHAN KUMAR