64-year-old hospitalised after fire in seventh-floor Andheri West flat

A fire broke out on Monday morning, November 9, in a flat on the seventh floor of Hans Vallabh building on Ram Mandir Road in Andheri West, Mumbai. A 64-year-old man living in the flat suffered breathing difficulty from smoke and was injured.

He was taken to Babasaheb Gawde Charitable Hospital in Vile Parle East, where he has been admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) for observation. According to doctors at the hospital, his condition is stable.

According to the control room of the Mumbai Fire Brigade of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), information about the fire was received at around 9.05 am. The fire was in Room No. 701 of the eight-storey residential building above stilt. The room is on the seventh floor.

The fire brigade said the fire remained confined to that room and did not spread to other parts. Electrical wiring and fittings, a bed, household goods, a split air conditioner, wooden furniture and papers were gutted. The affected area is estimated at about 500 to 800 square feet.

Meanwhile, three major fires broke out at different places in Mumbai on Diwali night. Civic officials said on Monday that several huts, shops, a commercial building and a garage were gutted. According to the officials, no casualties were reported in any of the incidents. They also said firefighters took more than nine hours to put out the fire in the Dongri area.

Information about the fire at Haji Kasam Chawl on Dr Maheshwari Road in Dongri was received at around 10 pm on Sunday. It was first treated as a Level-I fire and later upgraded to Level-II. A Level-I fire is generally handled with the initially deployed firefighting resources, while a Level-II fire requires additional personnel and equipment. According to an official, several shops and huts were engulfed, and the fire spread to electrical wiring, wooden furniture, LPG cylinders, chemical drums and tarpaulin sheets. The official said the fire was brought under control at 7.23 am on Monday.

A Level-II fire was reported at 10.51 pm on Sunday at a garage on Marol Military Road, near a school in Andheri. According to an official, it was extinguished at 3.50 am on Monday after about five hours of frantic firefighting.

The third fire broke out at 11.56 pm on Sunday in Skyline Vida, a ten-storey commercial building near Jolly Gymkhana in Vidyavihar. The fire spread from the seventh to the tenth floor. According to an official, the fire brigade declared it a Level-II fire at 12.52 am on Monday and extinguished it about six hours later, at 5.55 am.