Huge factory fire destroys plastic stock
Valuables worth millions of rupees were gutted in an incident of a huge fire in a factory near Saggian Bridge on Tuesday.
The manufacturing unit of walkers for children was established in a three-storey building. As the fire was noticed by people, they called rescue teams. Fire-fighters reached the spot on information and launched the rescue operation.
As the operation continued, the cylinder blasts were reported on the third floor of the building. The blasts resulted in the fire at the third storey also. The rescuers extinguished the blaze after an hours-long operation.
No loss of life or injury was reported in the incident.
It was a three-storey building constructed on a 20-marla piece of land. It had been distributed into two portions of 10 marlas each.
In 10 marlas portion where the fire was concentrated, it had three halls build upon each other. There was plastic material such as baby walkers and bicycles piled up.
The building had no proper entrance and exit, especially to upper halls.
The fire broke out at around 11:00 pm on Monday night.
The blaze continued throughout the night. During the fire, cylinder blasts at the third storey were also heard. The huge fire and blasts caused considerable damage to the building.
A spokesperson for the Rescue 1122 Farooq Ahmad said such type of fire where such a huge quantity of plastic material is packed into a building that has no proper exit and entry point could not be extinguished completely. At brief intervals, it keeps up sulking until and unless the whole inflammable material is not burnt to ashes. It could be contained only.
The fire-fighter announced the completion of a fire fighting operation after passing of over 16 hours of a continuous firefight.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 23rd, 2020.