Firemen use new tech to douse Aarey fire

The city's fire brigade is not taking any chances after a fireman lost his life battling a blaze in a Borivali mall last month. On Sunday evening, when a major fire broke out in the basement of Orchid Mall at Aarey Colony, the fire brigade put into use new techniques to bring the blaze under control. The fire, which broke out in the under-construction mall at around 3.15 pm was extinguished by 9 pm. No one was injured. 

    As part of the new strategy, fire officials drilled holes about two-feet in diameter into the walls of the building, so that the acrid smoke from the fire could escape. The fire was spotted by the watchman, who alerted the fire department. Chief fire officer Uday Tatkare said, "After the Goyal Shopping Centre incident, where fire officer Pradeep Jhagde died while trying to bring the fire under control, we decided to make things easier for our men by knocking down parts of the 9-inch divider walls. This mall has also been better constructed than Goyal, and has more staircases which easily allowed us access to the fire." 
    The mall's owners provided one of their excavators to fire brigade personnel to make the holes. According to firemen, the mall's walls had been more strategically partitioned during its construction. "This time even though the fire was large, we had to use only 12 fire engines instead of the 22 we used during the Goyal incident," Tatkare said.

Fire department drilled holes in the walls of Orchid Mall at Aarey Colony for the acrid smoke to escape