Two rescued after fire outbreak at Breach Candy residential building

The fire was declared level-2 by the MFB at 11.23 pm Saturday. While the investigation for the cause of the blaze is still underway, civic body officials claimed that the fire escalated to from level 1 to level 2 after two LPG cylinders exploded on the twelfth floor.

VN Sangle, assistant divisional fire officer of BMC’s Ward E told The Indian Express that the internal fire systems within the building were found inoperative during the fire outbreak.

“We will issue a notice to the building. The job was very difficult but we managed to confine the fire to the twelfth floor and no injuries were reported,” Sangle said.

According to sources, the rescue operations were delayed due to the vehicles parked near the premises. Speaking to The Indian Express, a senior civic official said, “When we reached the spot, we had to first move the parked vehicles to make way… This delayed the operation by 10 – 15 minutes, which is very critical in such cases.”

Experts claimed that often parking within the compound hampers the access of fire fighting equipment during rescue operations.

“When MFB gives the provisional Fire No Objection Certificates (NOC), we say that there must be clear access for fire appliances. However, thanks to Mumbai’s space crunch, nobody really adheres to it which results in delays of response and rescue operation,” said Prabhat Rahangdale, former chief fire officer and retired deputy municipal commissioner.

According to fire brigade reports, two people were rescued from the 12th floor through the staircase. No casualties were reported in the fire which was doused by 4 am Sunday.