Tower had equipment,no generator

Another senior fire official,directly involved in fire-fighting,said that a majority of hose pipes within the building were dysfunctional because of which most fire fighting had to be done from outside. “External fire fighting is time consuming and tedious as we have to lay a network of pipes outside the building and then extinguish fire from atop snorkels or rooftops of nearby buildings. If the internal fire equipment had been efficient,we would have been able to bring the fire under control in much lesser time,” said the official.

He added that ventilation was limited because of the glass façade of the building.

Eight two-wheelers parked just outside the building were charred when a burning metal piece fell on them. One was a new motorbike belonging to Nitin Gujjar,working with HDIL. Firefighting were carried out externally from the Indira Nagar SRA Building,and the SRA office. These were evacuated; those inside were asked to take their gas cylinders outside. An official at the senior vice presidential level in HDIL said as soon as they started smelling smoke,he rushed his entire staff of nearly 30 from his fifth floor office through the fire exit staircase. “About 1,500 people are present in the building at any given point of time. Luckily everyone managed to escape unhurt,” he said.