Blaze in Mumbai guts 22 scrap shops with oil and planks, doused in 5 hours

The fire started at the Kurla scrapyard at 2 pm.

A major fire gutted a godown housing 22 small scrap shops at Mandala in Mankhurd on Sunday. No injuries or deaths were reported.

Incendiary objects intensified the fire. (Satyabrata Tripathy/HT Photo)

The fire started at the Kurla scrapyard at 2 pm. The shops adjacent to each other were used to store oil and chemical drums, and planks, which intensified the fire. However, it was confined a 1,000-square-foot area, according to the Mumbai fire brigade.

According to a senior civic official, all shops in the area, which are colloquially called gallas, are illegal. “Illegal businesses such as refining oil and selling it in the black market are carried out from this area. This was a disaster waiting to happen, as there are not firefighting safeguards,” said the official.

P Rahangdale, chief fire officer, said, “There are no missing persons complaints. The fire spread quickly as the godown had inflammable scrap material, but the fire brigade managed to contain the damage.”

The cause of the fire is not yet known, however, the fire brigade suspect that inflammable material started it. The fire brigade will conduct an investigation in the following week to determine the source of the fire.

The fire brigade pressed eight fire engines and seven water tankers to douse the flames. An ambulance was also on stand-by. It took the fire brigade more than five hours to bring the fire under control.

This land falls under the jurisdiction of the suburban collector. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and officials from the collector’s department have been demolishing illegal warehouses and refineries in this area for the past week.