A furniture warehouse was gutted on Thursday in Ashok Vihar Phase 3 (extension). It took fire department officials nearly an hour to control the fire and five hours to douse it. No one was reported to be injured in the incident, fire department officials said, adding that they are verifying whether the warehouse had a no objection certificate (NOC).

As per officials, a call reporting a blaze was received at 2.48pm and six fire tenders, two each from Sector 29, Bhim Nagar, and Udyog Vihar fire brigades were sent to the spot, which is within the 300-metre restricted area of the Indian Air Force (IAF) ammunition depot.

The warehouse was used for polishing furniture, fire department officials said.

“We are yet to ascertain the cause of fire, investigations are ongoing. The warehouse was filled with chemicals meant to polish furniture, all of which are extremely flammable in the eventuality of a fire. Hence, after controlling the flames, it took us nearly three more hours to completely douse them,” assistant divisional fire safety officer IS Kashyap said.

The warehouse was located near residential houses, but evacuation was not required, Kashyap said.

Kashyap said since the warehouse was located within the restricted area of the IAF depot in Sector 14, they were checking if the building was constructed before 2016 to ascertain if the NOC would be valid, and secondly, if it had been renewed.

First Published: Apr 05, 2019 04:12 IST