Worker killed and two firemen hurt in Delhi printing press fire, officer says building’s fire NOC had expired in 2006

The fire fighters managed to control the blaze within four hours of it being reported, but thick stacks of papers and litres of ink continue to burn in various parts of the building, keeping the firemen busy till late Thursday afternoon.

The recent spate of deaths in fires in industrial buildings in the national capital continued when a worker died and two firemen were injured in a blaze that broke out at a printing press building in east Delhi’s Patparganj Industrial Area in early Thursday, police said.

Fire broke out at a paper printing press at Patparganj Industrial Area in New Delhi on Thursday.(ANI File Photo)

The lone man who died was identified as 25-year-old Phool Dev, who hails from Bihar and worked as a helper in the daytime and a guard at night, Jasmeet Singh, deputy commissioner of police (east district), said. “He appears to have died of asphyxiation due to the dense smoke the flooded the building,” the DCP added.

The fire fighters managed to control the blaze within four hours of it being reported, but thick stacks of papers and litres of ink continue to burn in various parts of the building, keeping the firemen busy till late Thursday afternoon.

Atul Garg, director, Delhi Fire Services, said the printing press did not have a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the fire department. “Their fire NOC expired in 2006 and they did not renew,” Garg said.

The DCP, meanwhile, said the burnt building was located in an industrial area and appeared to have its mandatory licence and permissions in place. “But a man has been killed in the blaze and we will be registering a case of causing death by negligence,” he said.

The factory owners, identified by the police as Atul Goyal and Anuj Goyal, did not respond to phone calls and text messages for their response.

Earlier in December, a fire that broke out in a five-storey building, serving as multiple small factories, in north Delhi’s Anaj Mandi in December, had left 45 persons dead. More recently, on January 2, a fire fighter was killed and 17 others injured when a fire caused the collapse of a battery factory in outer Delhi’s Peeragarhi.

In the latest incident, the call about the blaze was made at 2.38 am, said Garg. “We initially sent four fire tenders before the situation required us to send a total of 30 fire vehicles,” said Garg.

The three-storey building has a basement and is constructed on a 300 square yard plot. There is just one wide entrance to the building and an equally wide alley on its right, and ample windows on its floors, said Yashwant, a fire officer. “But the alley as well as most of the building was filled with papers and ink, which are inflammable,” said Yashwant.

Santosh Kumar, station officer of Mandawali fire station, who was the first to respond to the blaze, said four men managed to escape from the burning building at the beginning and there was no word on anyone else remaining inside.

“There were flames on the three floors and smoke had engulfed the basement. Strong winds in the morning caused the flames to rage on,” said Kumar.

The fire fighters couldn’t enter the building through its conventional entry point due to “heat and flames”, said Kumar, adding the fire fighters began by pushing in hose pipes on all the four floors to push in ample water in a bid to control the flames. “Some of us took positions on the neighbouring buildings to fire the fire while a few others broke open the glass windows on the front and the sides to pour water,” said Kumar. The glass-breaking act, Kumar said, left two firemen with cuts to their hands.

A little after 5 am, the firemen were able to control the flames to make an entry into the building and search for anyone left inside. “In the rear end of the building, a man was found dead. He had no burns and seemed to have died of asphyxiation,” said Kumar.