Chennai: A major fire that broke out at a home appliances godown off Madhavaram - Red Hills road in Red Hills during the small hours of Monday ravaged goods worth Rs 50 lakh. No casualties were reported and the fire was put out after an ordeal of about 8 hours.
The incident was reported at the storage facility of SSS Marketing located in Kattabomman street, Grand Lyon, Red Hills. Police sources said the residents of Kattabomman Salai saw smoke emanating from a godown in that street at around 4 am and alerted them. “We rushed to the spot immediately besides alerting fire control”, a senior police official said.
Fire tenders from four fire stations - Red Hills, Villivakkam, Vyasarpadi, and Anna Nagar - were pressed into service as the fire continued to rage. The facility had stored foam-based mattresses, cots, and plastic-based home-needs, among other things.
The 7,000 sq ft facility, which had ground floor and first floor storage, was up in flames in no time, and there was no access to get into the building to douse the fire. TNFRS and Police officials who were on the spot roped in an earthmover to break the windows of the building in the first floor to facilitate access to the fire tenders.
"The fire kept raging since almost everything stored in the facility was highly inflammable. As many as 5 Metro Water lorries were roped in to assist the fire tenders, and they offered spot refilling. It is fortunate that nobody was present in the building except for the building guard when the fire broke out. Otherwise, there could have been casualties”, a TNFRS official said.
The neighbours from that lane removed their vehicles and parked them in adjacent streets as a precautionary measure. It may be recalled that a similar fire ravaged a home appliances storage godown in Vanagaram on March 15.
