KARACHI: Black smoke rising from some unknown spot in the city alerted many citizens even as far away as Teen Talwar in Clifton on Friday morning. It was only when they switched on radio or television that they learnt that there wasn’t just one but three sources — in SITE, Gulbai and Hawkesbay — from where the smoke was coming from.

The first fire started at a garment factory near Pakistan Beverage Limited. Mohammad Afzal, one of the firemen working on controlling it said that they reached here early, around 8am and they were somewhat successful in putting out the fire until fresh flames erupted from the basement of the building. “It was a gas pipeline passing through here that added fuel to the fire in the basement. Then we were at it again. The SSGC people turned off supply from here so things have somewhat again come under control,” he said while pointing towards the pockets here and there in the basement where one could still spot the blaze.

At a distance, the factory owner quietly sat watching his property and good blow up in smoke. “People, including police personnel, have been coming here asking me all kinds of questions to which I don’t have the answers at this point because even my head is spinning from the damage. But I am grateful to God that there was no loss of life here today,” Haji Ghaffar told Dawn.

‘I am grateful to God that there was no loss of life here today’

At Gulbai, there was a tyre warehouse going up in flames, which also engulfed a next-door mosque. The imam of Masjid Razzaq, Mufti Mohammad Yousuf, said he was alerted by his two volunteers about the fire while he was upstairs making preparations for Friday prayers at around 11am. “I rushed to the cupboard to take out all the holy texts and copies of the Quran Shareef to move to a safer place. But the mosque we couldn’t save. First the windows broke then the entire mosque with the lights and ceiling fans in it. It is declared unsafe now,” he said sadly.

On the footpath two young men sat side by side, quietly watching the ongoing activities of people trying to save tyres. One of them had a bucket of water in front of him from which he kept washing his face. He called himself a khadim of the mosque. “I can taste smoke, I can smell smoke. I feel like my heart is sinking. Maybe it is because I’m fasting,” said, Saifullah, as the others there introduced him as their hero. They said he had jumped into the flames to save tyres in the burning warehouse.

“I live on the second floor of the mosque. The smoke woke me up. I wasn’t even wearing a shirt at the time but I ran downstairs to fetch buckets of water for putting out the blaze. When I realised the fire was too big to put out single-handedly, I changed my plan and went for the tyres. I must have thrown out some 200 tyres when our mosque’s muezzin, Abdul Kabir, called out to me to come back and save my family and belongings first,” Saifullah said.

“I have a seven-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter. Abdul Kabir lives in the ground portion of the mosque with his wife, three-year-old daughter and six month old daughter. We gathered our families and escorted them to a safe spot. We also tried saving some of our belongings but all the heavy stuff like furniture is gone now,” he said pouring more water from the bucket on his face.

The lane leading to the warehouse was kept clear for the fire tenders to pass through. The ambulances kept at bay, parked in a line on the road up ahead. But there were many pick-up trucks loading up whatever tyres could be saved. “Each tyre is worth around Rs40,000,” said a Pakhtun man, who said he was there to salvage tyres as well. “These are not locally-made tyres. There are Bridgestone, Michelin, LongMarch and Apollo tyres here, all very expensive,” said Matiullah Niazi.

The walls near the gate of the warehouse had to be knocked down for the coming and going fire tenders that remained unable to put out the raging fire. But as soon as they cleared one side many people who until then were keeping their distance tried getting inside but had to be stopped in their tracks. “See these people running inside like fool?” said a young Pakhtun man leaning on a motorbike. “They look like junk dealersand scavengers. But they are wealthy tyre shop owners turned into scavengers,” said Abdul Rehman, who said he had also suffered heavy losses as most of his tyres in the warehouse had burned to ashes. “I’m a grown man. So I can’t even cry. I just watch helplessly,” he said.

“When the fire broke, everyone from here ran to help out. The first fire tender arrived after a while and it was diverted inside a generator factory pour water on its wall that was common to the warehouse wall to cool it off so that the flames wouldn’t reach there,” said Zeeshan Yasin, a worker from another nearby factory. “And even now the tenders coming here are ill-equipped. They can’t put out this fire with just water. They are only bringing in foam now when everything has burnt down,” he said.

Fire fighting operation

Some 35 fire tenders of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation took part in the firefighting operation at three different locations, said KMC administrator Laeeq Ahmed, adding that there was no loss of life.

He said that while the fires at SITE and Hawkesbay had been extinguished earlier, the fire at Gulbai had also been put out by Friday evening. He said the firefighters had to make more efforts to bring the Gulbai fire under control as it was a warehouse where a large number of tyres were stored. “So it took some time before it could be brought under control,” he said.

He, however, said that currently the firefighting staff was taking a break at the locations of the fires as things there cooled down. They were also alert in case any other fire broke out there. “The staffers would return only after this cooling process is over,” he said, adding that luckily there was no loss of life in the fires.

The KMC chief said that as these were third-degree fires, so under the standard operating procedures, the fire tenders from other organisations, including the Karachi Port Trust, were also called in to jointly help in extinguishing the fires. He said water was also made available from the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board hydrants so that the firefighting operation did not face any hurdles.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2016