Fire in Dadar highrise | Internal fire-fighting system inoperative: Fire brigade

The fire brigade will now issue a notice to the owner or occupier of the building for the non-operational fire fighting system.

Despite the level 4 fire, no casualties were reported. The fire was reported at 8.25 pm on Thursday. It took the fire brigade over seven hours to douse the flames.

As per preliminary probe, a short circuit in a room of flat 4201 on the 42nd floor is suspected to have started the fire. All members of the family were present in the flat at the time, fire brigade officials said. As per reports, they attempted to use the fire extinguishers. When that did not help, the family evacuated the flat and also informed other families.

Mumbai Fire Brigade Chief Fire Officer Sanjay Manjrekar said, “The pipes of the fire system at R A Residency Tower had been turned on. However, the pipe burst rendering the entire internal fire fighting system inoperative during the course of extinguishing the fire.”

According to Deputy Chief Fire Officer Anil Parab, the defunct internal fire fighting system of the building posed a big challenge. Additionally, since the elevators were stopped, the fire fighting team had to manually climb all the way up to the 42nd floor with light portable pumps which weigh approximately 100 kg, slowing them down.

The fire brigade pressed into service 16 fire engines, two trucks and four jumbo tankers. The 90-metre hydraulic platform, however, remained unused as it only can reach up to the 22nd and 23rd floor of a building.