Forest fire on JNU campus
Forest fire on JNU campus
12 April 2010
published by www.indiablooms.com
India — A huge fire gutted about hundred acres of forested area in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus.
Police officials said Monday that they have brought the fire under control. The fire broke out near the Poorvanchal hostel on Sunday and it took nearly 15 hours for firefighters to bring it under control.
Police said that the blaze was reported from the area between the Sanskrit centre and the Brahmaputra hostel around 1:30 pm. No casualties have been reported.
A senior fire department official said that it took five fire tenders to douse the flames which had engulfed around 14 trees and dead leaves covering the ground before it could be contained.
The official went on to add that the blaze was aggravated by high temperature, wind velocity and dead leaves giving the firefighters a tough time. The firefighters also had to struggle with paucity of water on account of fire fighting operations underway at various other places in the capital.
Delhi Fire Service director R.C Sharma said that since a major fire broke out in Mundka, it took most of the resources for fire fighting. He also said that with limited resources, his department could have brought things under control if the university had fire safety measures in place.
Pradeep Sangwan, Chief Security Officer, JNU said that the varsity is still investigating the cause of the blaze.
Initial investigations tell us that it could have been caused due to a carelessly thrown cigarette. A similar incident occurred last year, too. The university has its own 1,000-litre water dowser vehicle; but we couldn’t contain this particular fire since the vehicle was unavailable today, he said.
