Bengaluru, Feb 1: A fire in a kitchen at an eatery on the first floor of Gopalan Arcade Mall, R.R. Nagar, Mysuru Road that broke out on Monday morning at around 10.45 a.m., gutted the eatery, before it was put out. The fire was controlled in time, before it spread to other shops and floors in the mall.
Four Fire and Emergency Services personnel were rushed to the spot from nearby Byatarayanapura Fire Station and the fire was put out around noon, after nearly an hour long operation.
The fire broke out in the chimney of the kitchen of the Mc Donalds outlet on the first floor, which led to dense smoke bellowing out from the mall complex, leading to panic. All the workers and the few customers at the eatery when the fire broke out ran out to safety. None were injured in the accident.
Basavanna, Chief Fire Officer, East range, who led the fire tending operation at the mall, said that there was sedimentary segregation of oil in the chimney, which caught fire while a chef was cooking on the stove. “These fires are common and not triggered by short circuit. It took an hour to be put out only because of the oil sedimentation in the chimney which fuelled the fire. The fire died down after all the oil in the chimney was burnt,” he said.
The fire also destroyed the false ceiling of the eatery and damaged a portion of an electronics and home appliances store on the floor above the eatery. However, the damage was controlled before the fire could spread to the floor above.
Gopalan Arcade Mall was served with a notice from the Fire and Emergency Services in the first week of January 2016 for violation of fire safety norms.
The notice was regarding mall authorities using up the set back area, supposed to be the access passageway for fire tenders, for parking and a godown for gas cylinders. M.N. Reddi, director general of police, fire and emergency services, said that even after the notice, the set back area was yet to be cleared. “We will now write to BESCOM seeking a disconnection of power supply till the mall complies to all the fire safety regulations,” he said.
“Today a minor fire broke out and it was luckily contained to a smaller region. But if it was a major fire that required multiple fire tenders then the accessway being blocked would have been an issue, we had to contend with,” a senior fire official who was part of the operation on Monday said.
However, there were adequate fire safety and fire fighting mechanisms inside the mall and in fact, before the fire tenders reached the spot the staffers on the spot had used fire extinguishers and had almost controlled the fire, Mr. Reddi said.
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