All-out efforts: Gulbai fire brought under control after 15 hours

Fire broke out in a tyre warehouse on Friday

KARACHI: The fire that broke out on Friday afternoon at a tyre warehouse in Gulbai, SITE, was finally controlled early Saturday morning.

Third-degree fires erupted on Friday at three different locations including Greaves, a pharmaceutical company near Hawke's Bay, Mundia Exports, a textile company near SITE Chowrangi, and Chawla, a tyre warehouse near Gulbai.

The fire at Chawla warehouse was controlled after a struggle of more than 15 hours, said chief fire officer Tehseen Siddiqui. The fire erupted on early Friday afternoon and was extinguished on Saturday at 5am.

Talking about the major obstacle in controlling the fire at the tyre warehouse, Siddiqui said that since tyres are made of rubber, a by-product of petrochemical, it was an arduous task to extinguish the fire. He added that with limited facilities the fire department was helpless and made all-out efforts to prevent losses as much as possible.



The authorities should invest in strengthening and funding the fire department, he demanded.

Muhammad Noman, the manager of the warehouse, said that they suffered a loss of more than Rs1.5 billion.

More than a thousand tyres of jeeps and tractors, which cost around Rs40,000 to Rs50,000, were stocked in the warehouse, he claimed. The tyres' stock in the warehouse belongs to different importers from all over the country who collect their consignments from here, he explained.

According to Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) administrator Laeeq Ahmed, the cooling process at the warehouse took longer than the other two sites because rubber takes longer to cool down.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 26^th, 2016.