Fire breaks out at locked flat of 16th Avenue high-rise in Greater Noida, none hurt

A fire broke out at a second-floor flat in 16th Avenue high-rise in Greater Noida’s Gaur City on Thursday morning, said police, adding that the fire was controlled within two hours and no one was injured in the incident.
Prima facie, it was suspected that the fire was triggered by a short-circuit in the flat, which was locked. The flat is owned by a Jammu and Kashmir resident, Rahul Pandit, who left for his home town on Wednesday for Shivratri.
Gaur City 2 police outpost in-charge Pradeep Kumar said, “Emergency services were alerted around 9.40am that a fire broke out at a locked flat in 16th Avenue, after which a team of Bisrakh police station and fire tenders from surrounding fire stations rushed to the spot.”
“Three fire tenders took two hours to douse the flames,” said Indra Pal Singh, fire officer, Greater Noida, adding that as the fire engulfed the entire flat, even items in the flat above were damaged,” said Singh.
Pandit told HT on phone, “I came to know about the fire around 9am. I left home on Wednesday around 6pm after turning off all lights and gadgets, including the gas pipeline and geyser.”
“My flat was gutted due to the delayed response of firefighters and the building’s firefighting system,” said Pandit, adding that water sprinklers and smoke detector alarms did not work, which caused the fire to spread.
Shiv Pratap Singh, who works in the maintenance wing of the high-rise, said, “I called the fire control room around 9.40am but they reached the spot only by 10am.”
Gautam Budh Nagar, chief fire officer, Pradeep Chaubey said, “After we were alerted, fire tenders from the nearest station rushed to the spot immediately.”