Major fire in furniture shop, godown in busy Kaiserbagh

LUCKNOW: A massive fire broke out in the godown of a furniture shop engulfing the entire two-storey building located near BN Road in Kaiserbagh area on Wednesday noon. Goods worth crores of rupees were gutted but no injury or casualty was reported in the incident.

The fire believed to have been caused by short-circuit triggered panic in the 500 populace residing in Rumali Devendra Vihar Colony.

The situation could be gauged from the fact that 11 fire-tenders and two fire station officers were pressed into the job to contain the flames. The neighbours and residents said that this was a second fire in last three months but still no action has been initiated by the administration.

“Fire officials arrived an hour late causing the fire to spread rapidly,” neighbours claimed.

Cloud of smoke hovering over the double-storey godown touched the skyline which wore darkness in the bright sunny noon. The smoke billowing was even visible from as far as 5 km.

Police said that Rajnish Katiyar, a resident of Lajpat Nagar in Chowk owns Maa Durga furniture shop. The shop is located near Kaiserbagh crossing while the godown of the shop is situated in Rumali Devendra Vihar Colony. It has been used as a godown by the Katiyars since 1968. According to the police, at around 1.31 pm, one Akshay, resident of BN Road visited the Lucknow fire office to inform about the outbreak of the fire. The fire officials rushed the scene but faced great difficulty in reaching out to the center of fire because of congestion.

Circle officer Kaiserbagh Amit Rai said that the godown was stashed with huge stock of office chairs, arm-resting chairs, tables and other furniture. “It became a challenge for firemen to tackle the fire as the godown was deep as a gorge,” he added. Fire station officers(FSOs) of BKT and Gomtinagar were supervising the dousing operations.

FSO (BKT) Ram Naresh Yadav said that prima facie it appeared that some inflammable substance came in contact with a live wire and triggered the fire.

The godown also lacked all fire safety norms. “It became very difficult for us to identify the core of the fire. The architecture of the godown was defective, it lacked system of ventilation and also had no fire-fighting device,” he added. State minister of law and justice Brajesh Pathak also visited the spot and told mediapersons that he would look into the incident and also seek action.