Fire breaks out in residential building of Raheja Gardens in Thane

Fire broke out on the fifth floor of a 12-storey building of Raheja Gardens in Raghunath Nagar, Thane, early on Tuesday morning; no casualties were reported but 15 families have been evacuated as a precautionary measure

A fire broke out on the fifth floor of a 12-storey building in Raghunath Nagar, Thane, early on Tuesday morning. There were no casualties but 15 families were evacuated as a precautionary measure by the fire department and disaster management team.

Fire breaks out on the fifth floor of the Ascona Building of Raheja Gardens, Thane, on Tuesday morning. (HT PHOTO)

“At around 4.45am, a fire broke out in the fifth floor of Ascona Building in Raheja Gardens. The cause of the fire is still unknown. Cooling operations continued till 10am. We have evacuated around 15 families staying in the adjacent floors,” said a fire officer.

DK Soman, a well-known astrologer and who stays on the same floor but in a connecting block, said, “Our society fire security alarms woke us up early on Tuesday morning. There were flames erupting from flat No. 503 and the society security immediately alerted the fire brigade and helped the residents of that particular flat to evacuate. The fire brigade arrived within minutes and started dousing the fire. As a precautionary measure, other families were also asked to evacuate.”

Soman and his wife are in their 80s and as the situation was under control, they were asked not to evacuate. “It would have been difficult to climb down so many floors for senior citizens and as we had started dousing the fire, we asked them to remain indoors. Although residing on the same floor, they were in a separate block, hence were safe,” said a fire officer who was on site.

According to residents, it was a short circuit in the air-conditioning unit in the bedroom of the Barve family that caused the fire. “The Barve family recently lost a family member due to Covid and the fire has occurred today morning, leaving the entire bedroom charred,” said another resident.