Panchkula, April 15
The fire at the Industrial Area, Phase 1, which started on Sunday morning, continued to rage today and was extinguished by the evening.
Fire officials, who claimed fire tenders made over 100 rounds to the dump site on Sunday, said they had lost the count now. The blaze continued nearly 36 hours after it broke out.
The Fire Department had received a call about the fire at 6.55 am. By then, it had engulfed the whole dumping ground adjacent to a petrol pumping station.
Yashpal, an operator at the Panchkula Fire Station, said, “Our fire tenders managed to control the fire by Sunday evening, but they are still working at the site to ensure it is completely put off. We don’t have the number of rounds fire tenders have made to the station.”
The administration had also sought help from adjoining Mohali and Chandigarh administrations to control the fire.
Deputy Municipal Commissioner Apoorva Chaudhary said the situation was under control.
Officials in the Panchkula Municipal Corporation (MC) said the civic body had been illegally dumping the city’s horticulture waste at the site for long due to a lack of means to process it.
Members of the committee formed by the district administration to assess the reason behind the fire, including SDM Gaurav Chauhan and MC Joint Commissioner Simranjeet Kaur, were unavailable for a comment.
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