Vehicle catches fire in Ooty

Fire service personnel removing goods from the freight vehicle, which caught fire in Ooty on Sunday. —Photo: M. Sathyamoorthy

A fire which broke out in a moving freight vehicle created a flutter here on Sunday.

Household items

Police sources told

The Hindu that the vehicle transporting household articles of three officer-students in the Defence Services Staff College (DSSC) in Wellington was heading towards Karnataka when the fire was noticed while it was passing through a stretch of the National Highway 67 at Kaakathope, near here.

The driver immediately stopped the vehicle.

However, over 70 per cent of the goods were reportedly charred before Fire and Rescue Services personnel from Ooty rushed to the spot and brought the blaze under control after an hour long battle. Among those who visited the spot was The Nilgiris Collector P. Sankar. Owing to the fire, traffic on the road was disrupted for about three hours. The cause of the fire is under investigation.