A fire mock drill was held at BDL Banur by NDRF to test the preparedness of coordinating agencies, stakeholders and create awareness among employees, according to Assistant Commandant, NDRF, Damodar Singh.
Fire broke out due to some unknown reason in an assembly building in the premises of Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL). The entire building (ground and first floor) is engulfed in fire and dense smoke. Due to heavy smoke, one person is unconscious and trapped in first floor and another dead in ground floor. A message is also received from reliable agencies that some radio active source is kept in the area.
The emergency siren is blown immediately and message is conveyed to the fire station of BDL. Standard Operating Procedure for operation of emergency siren is 3 times. Every time siren is blown for 25 seconds and 5 seconds off is given. As soon as the message is received, CISF Fire Crew rushed as first responders.
After reaching the area, fire crew kept the vehicle in up wind direction. Shift in-charge assessed the area and gave direction to lay one delivery hose and started fire fighting with the help of hand controlled branch. Meanwhile, two of the crew wearing three layer fire fighting suit and breathing apparatus set searched the area for any trapped personnel.
Search team has extricated a casualty and the casualty is being shifted to Medical First Responder (MFR post) for providing first aid and further movement to hospital.
One fireman with Compressed Air Foam (CAF) extinguisher back pack system entered the building and tackled the ground floor fire. The CAF extinguisher has a capacity of nine litres. Propellant used is compressed air pressurised at 300 bar. It operates at a pressure of 38 Bar, 12 metres is the effective range, 28 seconds is the working time.
Fire crew also extricated a victim from first floor of the building with the technique Fireman Lift with the help of extension ladder.
At this juncture, NDRF team took charge. One of them wearing three layer permeable suit detected the radio active source (dummy) with the help of different Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) detectors, and others wearing Non-Permeable suit shielded the source as per norms and shifted the source to safe zone. All the victims are extricated and decontaminated while BDL and CISF fire wings tackled the fire and first floor rescue of the affected area.