Fire breaks out in sofa manufacturing unit

HYDERABAD: A fire mishap, suspected to be caused by fire crackers, reduced Rs 10 lakh worth property into ash in a sofa manufacturing unit at Moti Nagar on Sunday morning. There were no casualties in the mishap.

According to police and fire services, flames erupted from garbage near the unit after a stray fire cracker fell into it around 10 a.m. Fire soon spread to the sofa manufacturing unit and an adjacent godown reducing sofa covers and other articles to ashes. Locals had some anxious moments as thick smoke engulfed nearby localities.

Around 10.20 a.m, the fire services department was alerted and one each fire tender from Sanathnagar, Jeedimetla and Film Nagar rushed to the spot.

"We had to battle for more than three hours to douse flames due to high intensity of the fire because of the highly inflammable materials stored at the manufacturing unit and the godown,'' a fire services official said.

Fire services personnel also had to toil hard to prevent flames from spreading to nearby houses. "There are seven houses near the godown and we had to make sure the fire did not spread to them,'' the officer said. Eight water tankers were pressed into service to douse the flames.

In another mishap, property worth Rs 50,000 was gutted in a fire that erupted in a gunny bag godown at Jummerath Bazar. Four fire tenders rushed to the spot and put off flames within an hour.