Panic gripped the congested hosiery market in Wait Ganj area after a major fire broke out at a unit near Saidan Chowk on Friday morning.
The blaze broke out in Maharaja Collections at around 10:30am, around 15 minutes after the owner, Pankaj Jain, switched on the main power supply. “I suspect the fire broke out due to a short-circuit. We raised the alarm after we spotted smoke rising from the first floor. Shopkeepers in the area helped us remove the stock from the ground floor. We tried dousing the flames, but to no avail. Within no time, the flames had engulfed the second and third floors of the building,” he said, adding that he had suffered a loss of around ₹1.5 crore.
No casualty or injuries were reported, and it took approximately four hours to control the flames. Plumes of thick black smoke could be seen rising from the building as the fire consumed stock and material. Traders whose shops were adjacent to the burning hosiery unit also removed their stock and materials as a precautionary measure.
Usually firefighters have a tough time navigating the narrow streets of the market, which is no stranger to fires. However, they said they were able to reach the market with relative ease as footfall was low in the market at the time.
Leading fireman Ravi Kumar said they had to refill the fire tenders at least 20 times to douse the flames.
Decades-old fire hydrant system fails
Firefighters say the decades-old hydrant system installed in the market did not work properly, due to which they had to go to the Sundar Nagar fire station to refill the tenders.
{{/usCountry}}Firefighters say the decades-old hydrant system installed in the market did not work properly, due to which they had to go to the Sundar Nagar fire station to refill the tenders.
{{/usCountry}}Market associations in the old city markets have been raising the issue for a long time, and authorities had assured the businessmen in the area that new hydrant systems will be installed in the area, but nothing was done on ground level.