PATIALA: Three firefighters including two firemen and a sub–-fire officer in Patiala were injured on Wednesday after three cylinders got blasted while they were dousing the flames in a house cum shop in the city.
The fire in the house was reported at the ground floor following an alleged short circuit but the cylinders on the first floor of the building also caught fire.
The incident took place in Top Khana Mor area of Patiala city in the wee hours and it took more than five hours to douse the flames as the owner had allegedly stored in his house a lot of inflammable material including coal in large quantity.
"We received a call at around 3.30AM that a house in Topkhana mor had caught fire. A team of firefighters along with the fire tenders reached the spot to douse the flames. The people in the area are mostly into the shoe-making profession. The firefighters safely evacuated the couple from the house within a few minutes, but one of five cylinders kept in the house got blasted. The other two cylinders also got blasted within a short span of time of the blast in the first cylinder leaving two firemen – Jagjit Singh and Naman Kaushal injured while a sub-fire officer Rajendra Kumar also faced minor injuries. The injured firemen were sent to government Rajindra hospital for treatment”, said Patiala Additional Deputy Fire Officer Surinder Kumar.
"There are a number of houses in the locality. The neighbours of the house that caught fire were also evacuated to avoid any casualties. The house owner was running a shop cum store on the ground floor and was living on the first floor where five cylinders were kept. The owner had stored the coal in large quantities and for this reason, the flames could not be doused for a long time. Our firefighters were injured due to a cylinder blast. Around 14 fire tenders were used to douse the flames", added Surinder Kumar.
The Municipal Corporation officials said that the injured firefighters were out of danger as they faced minor injuries.
"There were no casualties however three firefighters faced minor injuries and were given medical treatment", said Patiala Municipal Corporation Joint Commissioner Naman Maken.
