As many as three major incidents of fire on Friday in garment and tyre factories and a rice godown causing losses of millions exposed the limitations of fire brigade department in the city.
The fire brigade officials said the three incidents of fire were of high intensity which happened in SITE and Hawke’s Bay areas. Some 25 fire tenders were pressed into service to extinguish the three fires but it took them several hours to control fire one after the other. Reports said most of the fire tenders were out of order.
The fire at a tyres factory erupted at 10 AM and continued for eight hours. Millions of rupees tyres were burnt. Similarly, the fire at rice godown was first brought under control but it again started and had to be put off by over dozens of fire tenders.
Fire fighters said that the fires were of grade-III and they were facing shortage of water. They said they had informed the authorities about shortage of water and said if enough quantity of water was made available, they could have controlled the fire relatively in a short time with just four vehicles at the tyre factory. They expressed their surprise that while water was supplied to hydrants in different parts of the mega city, it was not available for fire fighters.
Traders said if fire brigade and Karachi water board had cooperated in fighting the fire, they could have prevented some of the losses.
