Ghaziabad: Fire at paint factory doused after 8-hour operation; none hurt

A major fire at a Ghaziabad paint factory took 20 fire tenders eight hours to control, causing extensive damage but no injuries reported.

It took 20 fire tenders nearly eight hours to control a major fire at a paint factory in Ghaziabad’s Mainpur industrial area near Delhi Meerut Road on Thursday night, said fire and rescue service officers, adding that the cooling-off activity lasted till Friday afternoon.

Officials stated the factory, spread over about 700-800 square metres, suffered extensive damage. (HT)

Fire department officials reported receiving a call around 9pm Thursday about a fire at the paint manufacturing factory and a nearby scrap warehouse used to store old cars.

“Many paint containers stored in the factory caught fire, resulting in multiple explosions that hampered firefighting efforts. Since it was a chemical fire, we largely used foam to douse it. The nearby warehouse also caught fire, but our teams extinguished it and prevented a further spread,” chief fire officer (CFO) Rahul Pal said.

Officials stated the factory, spread over about 700-800 square metres, suffered extensive damage.

“The factory was closed for Holi, and a security guard told us there was a blast in the compressor unit and that probably triggered the fire. Firefighting continued until 5am on Friday, and cooling took another four to five hours. No loss of life or injury was reported. Overall, we had to deploy about 20 fire tenders,” the CFO said.

The officials said fire tenders were dispatched from different stations in Ghaziabad and also from Meerut, Hapur, and Noida were called in for firefighting.