Vasco, Curchorem and Panjim with the help of 93 fire-fighters worked hard for over 48 hours to finally control the fire that engulfed Herald printing press on Thursday evening.
“I was in Margao when I received information about the fire. I rushed and reached the site within 30 minutes. Looking at the fire, I realised that with paper rolls in the dump, we had a huge task on hand. I could grasp the intensity of the flames given the situation. I was also informed of the costly machines inside the shed. Without wasting time, I decided to summon other fire stations as reinforcement. Full team from other stations, including Vasco, Old Goa, Panjim, Ponda, Curchorem Margao, rushed to the spot and in one hour’s time, we had 11 fire tenders,” Raiker said while explaining how he and his team had prepared the blueprint to fight the flames.
He further said that, “Even as we were trying to douse the flames, the paper rolls literally added fuel to the fire. The flames were almost uncontrollable. We then decided to break open the shed using JCB from one portion so that the paper rolls could be pushed outside the shed with the same JCB. We were successful in our attempt as slowly we made way for JCB to enter inside the shed and the fire-tenders were continuously spraying water on the path of JCB till the area was cleared from fire. Finally, after 48 hours, we finally managed to bring the situation under control and a major property was saved,” Raiker said.
According to Raiker, as there was sudden shortage of water to use as refill, he personally knocked the doors of industries located at Verna IDC and even various industries and many industries came forward to support the cause under mutual aid. “We didn’t get a wink all these while and instead were on our toes as our aim was to control the fire as early as possible. From reinforcement to deployment and planning everything was taken care off. All our staff and station officers as well as sub-officers played a crucial role and unitedly our team achieved success as we achieved in other such incidents,” he said.
Though the incident was a major one, but it was due to continuous monitoring and guidance of Raikar and his team the mission was accomplished. Having 26 years of experience in the department, Raikar is also a BSC LLB degree holder. To his credit, he has also successfully completed Special divisional officer Course at National Fire Service College Nagpur where he was awarded Gold medal for his performance. He is also one officer in fire department Goa, who completed two months course in urban search and rescue operations / medical first responder and training of trainers at London Fire College.
