Varachha fire proved department’s unpreparedness

Surat: Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC), one of the richest corporations in the state, has fire fighting equipment worth Rs 60 crore at its disposal including three hydraulic platforms. However, this proved to be of little use when 22 precious lives were lost in the worst fire incident the city has witnessed in the last three decades.
Interestingly, the fire and emergency department which claims it stays equipped with instruments to tackle brigade calls, however, proved itself hollow when it was unable to rise up to the occasion despite having machinery and enough manpower at its disposal. Sources said that hardly a few of the fire officers on the ground knew how to handle such a major call or act act when the action time on ground too was less.
After the Aagam fire incident that took place in November 2018, the fire and emergency department conducted drills across the city and also gave elementary fire fighting training to thousands of people including children from various schools and colleges.
In a brigade call of such a huge intensity, sources in the department said, fire officers need to follow four basic parameters of fire — ground, practical firemanship, command and salvage. In Friday’s incident, fire officials who reached the spot first did not have a clue as to what was exactly happening and what should be done, sources added. On Friday evening, the fire ladders available with the fire and emergency department failed to reach even 15 metre height, which is a top floor of a low rise building in the city.
Some people who were witness to the entire fire incident said that while the children were jumping from 20 metres height, the fire officials standing on the ground did not even come forward to direct the children to the safety or even extending the ladders with the help of people present on ground. In fact, even after the hydraulic platforms arrived and fire fighting started, these firemen had no clue that there can be as many as 15 children trapped in that small space.
THE DEPARTMENT’S STRENGTH
SMC’s fire and emergency department has 64 fire vehicles including six rescue vehicles
It has three hydraulic platforms, of which one is 70 metres in height and two are 55 metre in height
It has 884 fire personnel staff against the required staff of 968
It has a yearly budgetary allocation of more than Rs 200 crore for the last seven years to improve and modernize fire fighting techniques and machineries