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Laptop on charging mode sparks fire at 6th floor flat, 3 family members rescued
A fire department official said the heat or a spark from the laptop which was left on charging mode on a sofa could have caused the fire.
A family was rescued on Wednesday morning from their sixth-floor apartment in Vaishali sector 4 after a fire. Fire department officials could not confirm the cause of the fire but suspected that it could have been after laptop was left for charging overnight.
The incident happened at Leela Homes high rise apartments in the house of paediatrician Dr. Puneet Kalra who said he had gone to sleep at around 4.30am and left the laptop to charge.
“Around 7.30 am, my wife woke me up saying that there was a fire in our flat. We tried to go to the drawing room but there was fire and thick smoke. Unable to move out, we took our seven-year-old daughter to the balcony from where we started shouting for help,” said Dr Kalra. “Then we heard a blast, which could have been the air conditioner.”
“Our neighbours in the opposite flat came to our aid,” he said. “They got a ladder and put it across our balconies. Our daughter, then my wife and finally I crawled over.”
The fire department officials said that they got a call around 7am and deployed three fire tenders and about a dozen firemen from nearby Vaishali fire station. By the time they reached there though, the family had been rescued.
“One of our teams went up the stairs to reach the flat with water pipes. Another team tried to douse the flame from outside,” said Sunil Kumar Singh, chief fire officer. “It is likely that the fire started as the laptop was left on charging mode on a sofa and the heat or a spark caused the fire.”
A few residents caught the blaze on their phone cameras that later made it to social media.
“We estimate that we lost goods worth ₹3-4 lakh” said Dr Kalra.
