A major fire broke out at a chemical manufacturing company in Turbhe MIDC on Tuesday at 10.45 a.m. Though no casualties were reported, the firm, Machemco Resins Private Limited, may have suffered losses that the management estimates to be in crores.
Sanjay Harshe, production manager of the firm, said that the fire broke out around tea time. He said, “I was in the cafeteria, when a staff member came running towards me and said that fire had engulfed the processing area. We immediately grabbed the fire extinguisher and doused the flames. However, the fire started blazing again and we had to evacuate the place. The fire brigade arrived at around 10.52 a.m.”
It took 12 fire tenders close to two hours to eventually bring the fire under control. The fire was put out at 4.30 p.m. and the cooling process ended at 7 p.m.
R.B. Patil, MIDC fire officer, said: “The presence of chemicals made the firefighting challenging. The flames kept blazing and drums with chemicals kept exploding. It took more than five hours to douse the fire. The fire could have been triggered by a short circuit or sparks from welding work on the premises.”
Power fluctuation
Pradeep Thakkar, a director of the company, said “The company began manufacturing chemicals in 2004. We had the fire-fighting system in place and set up an underground water tank with storage capacity of 1 lakh litres.” The firm manufactured chemicals such as unsaturated polyester resin, fire retardant resin and the inflammable solvent, Styrene, which is used in the production of fibre glass.
Mr. Harshe said last Friday, there was a power fluctuation in the building after one of the machines worth ₹80,000 started emitting sparks: “We are not sure if Friday’s incident had anyting to do with Tuesday’s fire. It is difficult to estimate the exact loss. One tonne of raw materials worth crores and other instruments were destroyed in the fire.”
Senior Police Inspector Ramchandra Deshmukh said, “A case of accidental fire has been registered. We will now do a panchnama and record the statements of witnesses. We will get in touch with the electricity department, fire department and factory inspector to find out the cause of the fire.”
