Fire in AC unit at Forest Minister Ganesh Naik's Mumbai bungalow Pavan Gad, none hurt

A fire broke out in an air-conditioner unit at Pavan Gad, the official bungalow of Maharashtra Forest Minister Ganesh Naik in Mumbai, on Wednesday morning. Nobody was hurt. Fire crews arrived quickly after being alerted, and the blaze has since been put out completely.

According to the timings given by officials, the fire started at about 11.43 am. By 11.55 am the fire brigade had classed it as a Level-1 fire, the category generally handled with the brigade's initial resources. The Mumbai Fire Brigade then took on the flames and had them under control by 12.42 pm, after which the fire was extinguished fully.

In the early stage of the incident, thick smoke was seen rising from the bungalow. Two to three fire engines first rushed to the site, and the number went up to four as the work to contain the fire went on. A large police contingent was also stationed there.

Mr Naik, counted among the senior leaders of the state Cabinet, was not at the bungalow when the fire started. Some staff were present, but the Diwali holidays are on and employees are away on leave, which kept the number of people inside low. Officials confirmed that no one was injured.

Preliminary information points to the AC unit as the origin, though the exact cause has not been established. An examination will look at whether a short circuit in the air conditioner was indeed responsible. How much damage the bungalow has suffered is not yet clear, and further details are awaited.

The bungalow stands inside the MLAs' residence, Vidhayak Niwas, opposite the Mantralaya bus stop, a short distance from the seat of state power. The incident drew attention quickly for that reason. The area holds the official residences of several ministers, among them Aditi Tatkare, Nitesh Rane, Sachin Ahir and Dada Bhuse. It also houses the offices of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and the Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar). The sudden fire caused panic in a locality of such political importance.

Fires in government premises have a history in the city. The worst was on June 21, 2012, when a huge blaze tore through the Mantralaya. It began with a short circuit in the fourth-floor cabin of the then minister Babanrao Pachpute. The offices of the then Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, the Deputy Chief Minister and the Chief Secretary were gutted completely, thousands of files and key documents were destroyed, and the building as a whole was badly damaged.

The Pavan Gad fire was one of several reported across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region in two days, which kept fire crews constantly occupied. On Tuesday night, huts caught fire at Pratiksha Nagar near Mala Garden in Wadala. The police control room alerted the fire brigade at 10.51 pm and the fire was declared Level-1 at 11.15 pm. Mumbai Police, BEST staff, the 108 ambulance service and ward officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation joined the relief work. Two to four huts were affected, and nobody was hurt.

Early on Tuesday, a scrap warehouse at Lohoti Compound in Bhiwandi caught fire at about 2.03 am, and the flames spread to a neighbouring powerloom factory. Residents and factory workers carried machines, raw cloth and other goods to safety as the threat to nearby homes and shops grew. The factory was still gutted completely, with considerable loss of property, but no deaths were reported. In Talavali, Navi Mumbai, a timber warehouse burned from about 2 pm on Tuesday, and firefighters took around an hour and a half to bring it under control. No casualties were reported there either.

No life was lost in any of the four incidents, but the fires, at a minister's bungalow, huts, a powerloom unit and a timber store in quick succession, have raised fresh questions about fire safety and preparedness in the region. The total destruction of the Bhiwandi factory shows how severe such fires can become in industrial and storage premises.