KARACHI: Three major fires one after the other today in garment and tyre factories and rice godam causing losses of millions of rupees and exposed the limitations of Fire Brigade, Karachi.
The fire brigade said the three fires were of high intensity in SITE and Hawke’s Bay. Twenty five fire tenders were pressed into service to extinguish the three fires but it took them several hours to control fire one after the other. Reports said that many fire tenders were out of order.
The fire at a tyres factory erupted at 10 AM and continued for eight hours. Millions of rupees tyres were burnt. Similarly the fire at Rice godam was first brought under control but it again started and had to be put off by about a dozens of fire tenders.
Fire fighters said that the fires were of grade-III and they were facing shortage of water. They said they had informed the authorities about shortage of water and said if enough quantity of water was made available, they could have controlled the fire relatively in a short time with just four vehicles at the tyre factory. They expressed their surprise that while water is made available to hydrants in different parts of the mega city but it is not available for the fire fighters.
Traders said if fire brigade and Karachi water board had cooperated in fighting fire, they could have prevented some of the losses.