Fire engulfs terrace of pvt hospital

Vadodara: A major fire broke out on terrace of a private hospital near Sulemaani Chawl on Waghodiya Road on Tuesday evening.
Around 10 patients, their relatives and the hospital’s staff were rescued amid panic situation. Two patients were in ICU while eight others were in different wards and rooms. They were rushed to other hospitals in the area in different ambulances.
The fire broke out the terrace of the Faith Hospital run by Dr Mohammed Hussain around 7 pm. The medical store and a storage area on the terrace were completely gutted in the incident. The fire was, however, limited to the terrace, but the smoke had spread down on the fourth floor through the staircases.
It took around two hours to douse the blaze completely. Fire officials got different versions about the reason for the fire. While some eye-witnesses said that short-circuit in solar panel sparked the fire, others said that food was being cooked on the terrace and that caused the fire. “We will be taking forensic help to ascertain the exact cause of fire as there are different accounts,” Mod said.
The fire was first sighted by a traffic sub-inspector who was deployed near Sulemaani Chawl traffic point. “When I had a glance at the terrace, I saw something burning, but I found it normal. Few seconds later when I again looked there, the fire had gained giant form so I rushed to the top along with other cops present with me,” said traffic sub-inspector Jaya Parmar.
Parmar added that she immediately switched off the main switch of the electricity and rushed the patients on the third floor to the lower floors. “While we were moving further on the upper floors, the fire fighters had reached by then,” she said.
Fire officials said that they managed to limit the smoke till fourth floor and to douse the fire on the terrace, they had to go through a neighbouring mosque. “We had formed different teams, one was formed to control the fire while two other teams were rescuing patients from the building,” said fire officer Manish Mod.
The hospital had fire extinguishers but there was no fire-fighting system.