COIMBATORE: A massive fire broke out at a coir factory at Malaipalayam near Sulur on Sunday evening. The fire and rescue services personnel took a gruelling 10 hours to put out the blaze. However, there were no casualties or injuries.
Meanwhile, on Monday, a group of farmers from the area petitioned the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) against the coir fibre export company alleging that it has been flouting safety norms.
“The fire occurred when we were driving our tractor on the coir fibre that was spread over a 5-acre plot to remove moisture. A spark from some motor nearby could have led to the fire,” said Muthumanickam, who runs the export unit.
Within minutes the fire spread across the entire plot as dry coir fibre is highly inflammable and smoke spread for about 3km radius around the factory.
Thiagarajan, a farmer who cultivates the adjacent plot and one of the petitioners, said, “Due to smoke, many people living close to the land began coughing. As there was no concrete compound wall around the factory, the fire spread to my land burning maize and tomato crops and damaging the irrigation system.”
Two fire vans were deployed to put out the fire, S Gopal, officer at the Sulur fire and rescue services station, said. “We took one van from Sulur and one van from Kinathukidavu, with six people from each station. We came to the spot a little after 4pm and efforts went on until 2am on Monday,” he said, adding, “We ended up using nearly 40 private tanker lorries for supplying water.”
The export unit executive said they had started the unit just before the first lockdown after obtaining all approvals. “We are trying to look into ways we can prevent such instances and are willing to take suggestions from the authorities too,” he added.