A fire in the early hours of Tuesday at a paper re-cycling plant in Laggere here gutted the godown, causing an estimated loss of Rs. 50 lakh, even as it took about 12 hours for the Fire and Emergency Services personnel to put out the fire. There were no casualties.
The fire broke out at Rao Traders. Fire and Emergency Services received the call at 12.40 a.m. Though the first fire tender rushed to the spot just a few minutes after the call, the fire had engulfed the godown by then, according to officials.
J.H. Ravishankar, Regional Fire Officer (Bangalore West), who led the fire fighting operations, said that they pressed into service 13 fire tenders and put out the fire completely after a 12-hour operation.
He said that the 1,750-sq m godown had a large quantity of paper in stock. There were also three trucks laden with waste paper that had come from Raichur on Monday. The entire godown and the three trucks were gutted. He said that the fire could have been caused by an electric short circuit.
Mr. Ravishankar said that the unit, which stored large quantities of combustible material, neither had clearance from the Fire and Emergency Services nor had any fire fighting measures in place. He said that the department would lodge a police complaint against the owners of the unit.
