Fire personnel save two minors trapped on 3rd floor flat in Indirapuram

The incident took place in Indirapuram’s Shakti Khand 2 residential building in a second floor flat of the building. It soon spread to the upper third storey flat where the two minors- 16-year-old Dev Yadav and his 8-year-old sister Gunishka - were trapped in balcony.

About 25 personnel and officers of the fire department on Saturday battled the odds amid a fire at a three-storey residential building in Indirapuram and rescued two children trapped in the balcony of their third floor flat.

The fire broke out in a three-storey residential building in Indirapuram’s Shanti Khand in Ghaziabad on Saturday, May 11, 2019.(Sakib Ali / HT Photo)

According to officials, the fire started around 1.30pm and a call was received by the Vaishali fire station.

The incident took place in Indirapuram’s Shakti Khand 2 residential building in a second floor flat of the building.

The fire soon spread to the upper third storey flat. Neighbours said that since the parents of the two children were not at home, they asked them to stand in the balcony at the rear of the flat.

“The children were scared and we asked them to stand in the balcony behind the flat which was covered with an iron grille. Unfortunately, we could not rescue them from the balcony. Their mother had gone to visits some neighbours ,” Ashok Kumar, one of the residents, said.

“The building’s stairs were also on fire by then and covered with thick smoke. We called up the fire service,” he added.

“The other residents in the building had come downstairs, while those who lived on the upper floors had gone to the roof to save themselves,” Kumar added.

The two children, Dev Yadav, aged 16 years, and his sister Gunishka, aged eight, remained trapped amid the fire and thick smoke.

“There was a lot of smoke and heat in the common stairs of the building due to the fire. So it was difficult to reach the third floor flat where the two children were trapped. We could not find a way to get them out. So we decided that our firemen would go through the common stairs and take the water pipes along,” Sunil Kumar Singh, the chief fire officer, said.

“As we climbed up, we doused the fire with water and continued to climb the stairs,” he said.

In the meantime, the rescue tender, the hydraulic platform and three fire tenders, including two from Vaishali and one from Sahibabad were pressed into service.

“After we reached the third floor, we found the flat door open and reached the balcony where the two minors were. We consoled them. But we could not take them out through the main door due to the fire and thick smoke. We then decided to cut the iron grille of the balcony. After this, the two children were taken down,” the chief fire officer added.

According to officials, the entire operation took about one hour.

They said there was a power outage in the area and when the electricity came back on, it caused a short circuit in the air conditioner of the second floor flat, which caused fire.