Employee says the fire alarm did not go off

Many officials could not use fire extinguishers

Mumbai: In a tragic incident a large fire broke out in the basement of Aaykar Bhavan, the Income Tax office located on Maharshi Karve Road at Churchgate in Mumbai on Monday. According to the sources, the fire broke out at 1:30 pm, but the Mumbai Fire Brigade received the initial call at 2:01 pm and officially declared it as Level-I fire around 2:15 pm.

No casualties were reported in the incident and all the employees were rescued from the building. As the building has a centralised air conditioning system and all the windows were closed the smoke from the fire spread rapidly throughout the building. The thick smoke also spread to the surrounding areas pf the building. 

Around 23 vehicles of the Mumbai Fire Brigade (MFB) were engaged under the intense operation to extinguish the fire from different gates at the building. Backup ambulances police officials, and the BEST staff, were also seen at the site.

The MFB deployed a DFO, ADFO, three Senior Station Officers and two Station Officers, along with three fire engines, one CFF, three jet units, one AWTT, one MWT, one WQRV, one TTL and one ALP.

Specialised equipment including aerial ladder platform was deployed to evacuate people from the upper floors. Two people, a male and a female were rescued from the Guest House at the seventh floor of the building. Firefighters were successful in rescuing the staff on the lower floors as well.

According to an employee, who requested anonymity said, “The fire broke out at 1:30 pm when the staff was having lunch, but the fire alarms did not go off.”

“We were not allowed to exit from the main gate,” he added.

The employee said, “The fire was confined to the basement and the smoke went up to all the floors of building.” Asked about the loss, the employee said, “As the fire broke out in the godown no person was injured. But the records kept in godown that are mostly old records have been burnt.”

When asked about the fire drill protocol, the employee said, “The office staff did not know how to use the extinguishers, a possible reason why the fire’s intensity kept increasing.”

Officials did not confirm the cause of the fire and or damage caused in the basement area.

The Aaykar Bhavan, Income Tax office is multi-storey government building that serves as a workplace for a large number of Income Tax officials.