SITE plastic factory blaze doused after hours of firefighting

 Factory owner decries responders’ strategy, claims fire could have been put out
in two hours; mayor urges Sindh govt to make fire department self-sufficient

A fire that broke out at a 1,500 square yard plastic factory in SITE’s Labour Square on Sunday morning took till late afternoon to be completely doused. No casualties were reported.

Owing to the day being a holiday, no labourers were present inside the building when the flames erupted.

According to police and fire brigade personnel, firefighters feared the inferno could spread to a nearby grid station of the K-Electric and a CNG station. The gas station was, however, evacuated immediately. 

The five fire tenders initially despatched to the site turned out to be insufficient following which vehicles were sent in by the water board, Pakistan Navy and the Karachi Port Trust.

"The inferno could have been put out within two hours but they (rescue officials) are bringing only one vehicle (fire tender) in the street at a time," claimed the factory owner while speaking to Geo News. "More fire tenders could be parked in the street which is 60-ft wide,” he added. 

A fire department official told Geo News that six to seven fire tenders and two water bowsers were used in the operation. "All vehicles available have been put to use," he said.  However, he added that they ran out of foam a little while into the rescue operation.   

Mayor’s visit 

Visiting the site, city mayor, Waseem Akhtar while speaking to the media claimed he was not there to play politics. However, he added, "But I would like to request the Sindh government to make the fire department self-sufficient." 

Akhtar said the department did not have the necessary equipment to deal with such incidents. He further stated that all the vehicles were being used at a single site and that nothing could have been done had another fire broken out in some other area. 

With fire incidents becoming a weekly norm in the city, a lack of resources and training available to firefighters has rendered rescue operations pointless. More often than not, fire officials manage to control a fire only after it has damaged a building’s infrastructure, while products and equipment stored inside it are reduced to ashes.

Only three days ago, a depot situated near the Mauripur Truck Stand was gutted in a massive fire, bringing the traffic on Mauripur Road and adjacent areas to a standstill.

Fire brigade officials told The News that the fire erupted in the depot situated at the truck stand’s gate number six at 12:46pm. A storage house for clothes and chemicals, all hell broke loose at the truck stand when chemical drums exploded. 

It was at 7:15pm that KMC’s chief fire officer, Tehseen Ahmed, informed The News that the fire had been put out.

On April 26, a tyre warehouse in Mauripur was substantially damaged in a massive fire that took 14 hours to be completely doused. On the same day, two furniture shops in Malir were also burnt in a separate incident.

Similarly, on April 8, a fire that broke out in the basement of a residential building Nazimabad No 4 was extinguished after 23 hours. Around 18 fire tenders, two water bowsers and 40 hydrants were used in the firefighting operation.