Fire services ministry comes down heavily on logistics firm for godown fire near Howrah Bridge

HOWRAH: 10/6/19: The fire services department swung into action and will be asking the logistics

firm, which ran the godown gutted in a fire near Howrah bridge on Saturday, about steps they had

taken to install fire-safety measures at the facility. The fire that started around 2.15am on Saturday

had spread from a shanty adjacent to the warehouse on the banks of the Hooghly. The flames were

so intense that even after they were doused the temperature inside the godown remained over

100°C. A forensic team that visited the gutted godown on Saturday had to return because the

temperature was not suitable for them to pick samples or inspect the damaged portion.

Fires services minister Sujit Bose said on Sunday that the department would shortly serve a notice to

seek the company’s clarification on the fire-safety measures it had adopted at the godown. An

official of the logistics company — Inland World Logistics Private Limited — claimed they had already

applied for a fire licence.

A senior fire services department official said initial inspections showed there were only a few fire

extinguishers at the gutted godown. “We did not find any sprinklers, fire alarms or water hydrants,”

he said. Till late on Sunday, firefighters were still working inside the godown searching for embers of

fire and dousing them.

“There is still a lot of smoke inside the godown. We are spraying water to cool down the place. We

also have to search for remnants of fire before we call off our operation,” said a fire brigade official

on Sunday. “We found temperatures as high as 140°C when we went there. We cannot work till

temperature in the confined space goes down to 45°C,” said a forensic official.

The intense heat could have led to the collapse of the first-floor roof, said a civil engineer. “When

there is a lot of inflammable material inside and the flames burn for long, the temperature of the

confined space reaches close to 700°C,” said an engineer. “Iron starts losing its strength and other

properties from the time temperature hits 500°C,” he said.

Metro saw at least one buckled column and several damaged beams on a portion of the first-

floor ceiling. Bose told Metro that he was surprised that the port authorities did not take any

steps to stop the recurrence of such fires. “I will also try to find out why the port authorities

do not take steps to stop such recurrent fires,” he said.

A fire had broken out in a warehouse on the banks of Hooghly near Armenian Ghat in November

2017. Another fire had ravaged a godown on Transport Depot Road in the port area in October

2017. The Calcutta Port Trust is the owner of majority, if not all, of warehouses along the riverbank,

but they lease out the spaces to companies that run them. An official of Calcutta Port Trust had said

on Saturday that lessees were responsible for undertaking fire-safety measures and the agreements

were executed accordingly. But a retired fire brigade official said that even then the onus fell both

on the owner and the occupier.

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