Team Herald
PERNEM: Barca de Festa, a houseboat, anchored in Chapora River at Chopdem was gutted in fire on Friday morning.
According to Pernem fire station in-charge Namdev Parwar, the station received a call from fire control room at around 10.20 am informing that a houseboat was on fire near Chopdem Football ground. Later, a team of fire fighters with a fire tender immediately rushed to the spot.
“However, by that time we reached the spot, the boat was already in high flames. Since the anchor rope also was gutted in fire, the boat started drifting towards Siolim due to strong flow of water,” Parwar said.
“As such, with the help of some local boats and taking a floating pump with us, we entered the river and put out the fire after two and half hours,” he said.
Later, the boat was brought ashore and handed over to its Manager Niraj Wagle. The houseboat is owned by Sulekh Agarwal and Mohit Agarwal.
A carpenter and two maintenance boys, who were on the houseboat when it caught fire, jumped off the vessel to safety. The boat consists of two floors and the workers were on the basement. The fire broke out on the top floor. A short circuit is suspected to be the cause of fire.
Besides Parwar, the fire fighting team consisted of J B Malik, P A Kambli, V N Parab, Shailesh Haldankar, Vishnu Datta Parab, Amol Parab, Amit Sawal, Mayur Naik. The following staffers from from Mapusa fire station were also part of the team: D S Sawant, P G Mahale, Suraj Shetgaonkar, Aprimo Dias and Girish Gawas.
