Poor ventilation could have caused Delhi fire

They need to be stored in specially sealed containers as even low-intensity sparks produced by electrical gadgets can cause ignition, scientists at the Defence Institute of Fire Research DIFR here told PTI.

Preliminary investigations showed stocks of varnish, thinners, resins and paints were lying in the godown of the company where the explosion occurred.

Thinners, used in diluting paints, vapourise at room temperature and can ignite if not properly sealed.

Vapours from thinners cannot be identified as they lack a distinct smell unlike liquefied petroleum gas, in which Mercaptan-A is added for a specific odour to identify leakage, DIFR director P KChatterjee said.

The clouds of highly inflammable chemical vapours might have been ignited by a spark, he said.

Poor ventilation, which results in the building up of high vapour pressure in a room, might have also contributed to the explosion, DIFR scientists explained.

Chemicals like petroleum ethers can even catch fire by low-intensity sparks that are produced when an electrical gadget is switched on, Chatterjee said.

This requires special fire-protective switches, cables and fittings in a godown, to which little attention is paid.

Containers made of special material with sophisticated sealing methods are required to store such inflammable chemicals as the container material may react with them. The containers should also be kept at a minimum of 15 m away from any possible fire source, he said.

According to the compendium on fire-safety data of the Fire Protection Association in the United Kingdom, MEK peroxide, used in the curing of polyester and acrylic resins, should be kept in specialcontainers supplied by manufacturers.

If kept in normal containers, pressure generated by its vapours may result in explosion and the fire is difficult to extinguish as MEK peroxide contains oxygen.

Certain inflammable chemicals change their properties depending on conditions like temperature and pressure and some, like silane, even undergo quot;spontaneous combustionquot; 8212; they explode without any ignition source, the DIFR director said.

Petroleum ethers were responsible for the fire at Hindustan Petrochemicals Limited refinery at Visakhapatnam last year.

Toll 44, another fire

The toll in Monday8217;s devastating blaze in Lal Kuan area of New Delhi rose to 44 with three more succumbing to burns even as another fire gutted a hardware godown in the central district late Tuesday night, police said.

Forty-two of the Lal Kuan victims have been identified while efforts were on to identify the remaining two, sources said. The bodies of 41 victims have been handed over to their relatives, they said adding22 persons were presently undergoing treatment at various hospitals. The condition of some of them with high percentage of burns is stated to be serious, sources said.