Team Herald

VASCO: Four houses were destroyed in a fire reported at Driver Hill, Vasco on Monday morning.

According information, the incident came to light when neighbours saw smoke emanating from the house owned by one Suresh Toraskar and three other adjoining houses that are part of Toraskar property. The Vasco fire station received a call around 10.20 am and soon the fire tenders rushed to the site and managed to douse the fire.

 “Soon after receiving information, we made visited the site and noticed that fire had already engulfed the houses. Since it was a major fire, I immediately asked for a second fire tender and even requested the MPT to send its fire tenders as backup. Finally, we managed to douse the fire. Loss is yet to be estimated,” a fire official said.

However, the victims of fire incident claimed that gold ornaments worth over Rs 10 lakh besides cash and other electronic and household goods were gutted.

 “The incident occurred when my wife and I were at our workplace. Likewise, every day even today we had switched off all electrical switches before leaving the house. It’s a mystery for us because the fire incident was reported when all electrical appliances and switches were switched off.  Today, we were supposed to attend a marriage and my wife had kept all her gold items worth Rs 10 lakh on the bed. Similarly, I am also the treasurer of a nearby temple and the temple gold ornaments were kept in my house. After the fire was brought under control I went inside my house and found that all gold ornaments were missing and other household goods and appliances etc were completely destroyed in the fire,” Sajjan Naik, whose rented house was completed gutted in the fire said.