Scariest Fire Accident: Recalls First Responder
Road was chaotic and the bus was engulfed in flames. We approached from opposite direction: First Responder
Hyderabad: Kurnool fire station leading fireman M Venkataramudu was the first responder to the bus accident spot in the district early Friday.
Braving traffic chaos at the spot after the incident, the six-member fire-fighters team led by Venkataramudu reached the spot in the opposite direction and carried out a fire-fighting operation. It was the second fire call that the fire station received since midnight.
The fire-fighters from the station attended a call around 1.30 am in town where a lorry caught in flames. Minutes after receiving a call from the fire control room around 3 am, the team rushed to the spot. “It was chaotic on the road where fire broke out in the bus. We then decided to reach from the opposition direction,” he explained.
The bus was engulfed in the flames by the time the team reached the spot. Recalling how his team executed the fire fighting operation, Venkataramudu, speaking to Deccan Chronicle, said the fire was extinguished from two sides of the bus. As a result, the flames were extinguished within half an hour.
“When we reached the spot, a few of them were already lying on the road after jumping out of the bus breaking open with window panes,” he said. Barring tyres, the entire bus was damaged in the incident in the fire that probably originated from the front portion and subsequently spread to the entire vehicle.
Venkataramudu, who already completed 32 years service in the department, attended a large number of distress calls. But he said the bus fire incident was the scariest mishap attended in his career. “We found only ashes inside the vehicle when we inspected the vehicle after completing the fire-fighting operation,” he said.
The team briefed the senior officers about the severity of the incident. The officers then rushed to the spot and inspected the bus to know the cause of the fire.
