Another fire guts office at Patto
TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Two fires, one at the Goa Medical College which forced the evacuation of 30 children, and another at Myles High building at Patto Plaza, kept the Fire Services on their toes, Thursday evening.
The fire at the GMC’s gynaecology ward was triggered off from UPS batteries and the billowing smoke entered into the ward, forcing the evacuation of some 30 children and their attendants as a precautionary measure.
“They were evacuated as a precaution. The fire did not enter the wards. Only the smoke entered the wards and we did not want it to affect them, so we temporarily asked them to move. It was nothing major. They have all moved back to the wards now,” Dr Sunanda Amonkar, medical superintendent said.
Fire tenders from Panjim, Mapusa and Old Goa, which had just extinguished a fire at Miles High Patto, reached the GMC on time to stop the fire from spreading to an airconditioning duct. If it had reached the duct it would spread to all wards, fire officials said.
According to officials batteries in the UPS system that cater to the wards ~some 245 of them~caught fire and the smoke entered the wards.
The distress call from GMC was received at around 3.29 pm while the call for the Patto fire was received at 3.09 pm by the fire services.
The fire at Myles High building at Patto completely gutted the SBI Insurance office on the second floor.
Officials said that as the building was fully encased with glass, there was no way for the smoke to escape so it got converted into soot which was found on all floors causing damage and forcing people to run to the top floors to escape. Many of these were officials from the Lusofonia Games Committee who were at the Games office above the second floor and had to be evacuated by crane.
Meanwhile, a minor fire was also reported at Calangute when a pan that was used to fry potatoes caught fire and the blaze cause smoke to emanate from the exhaust fan at Hotel 10, Gaura Vaddo. Fire service personnel along with the fire tender from Pilerne-Saligao fire station rushed to the site and put off the fire. A fire tender from Mapusa also reached the site. There was no damage to life or property except for the exhaust fan.
