Varanasi: A massive fire that broke out in pipes in the storage yard of GAIL, about 50 meters away from its CNG pump at Karkhiyaon industrial area along Varanasi-Lucknow highway under Phulpur police station area, led to chaos on Friday night.Due to the high intensity of fire, vehicular movement was stopped in one lane of the highway while firefighters worked hard for several hours to extinguish the blaze with the help of fire tenders called in from the entire district and hydrants from all factories in the industrial area.After the flames were extinguished, chief fire officer Anand Singh Rajput said 11 fire tenders carried out firefighting exercise continuously for over three and a half hours. Complete control over fire was achieved only around 12.30 am. No loss of life was reported in the incident, but pipes and other material kept in the storage yard were damaged at a large scale. The amount of loss was being estimated by the company.”It is suspected that electric short circuit sparked the fire in the storage yard of GAIL located near its CNG pump around 9 pm. By 9.30 pm, fire control room of Pindra area reached the storage yard where medium density polyethylene pipes and steel material were stored in huge quantity. In view of the very high intensity of fire, all available firefighting vehicles from Pindra station, neighbouring Jaunpur district and Varanasi city were called to the spot.The nature of the fire was extremely intense, said Rajput, adding that had the flames reached the CNG station, a major accident could have occurred. Rajput, who led his team of firefighters, worked hard to prevent the fire advancing towards the CNG station and confined it to a controlled area. Due to westward direction of wind, the fire did not reach the Agro Park and several factories were saved from coming under its grip.The flames rose so high that they were visible from about 2 kms away. The incident caused panic in the surrounding area. In view of safety, one lane of the Varanasi-Jaunpur Highway was temporarily closed. SDM Pindra Pratibha Mishra, Tehsildar Kulwant Singh, Naib Tehsildar Radheshyam Yadav, ACP Prashant Singh and Pindra inspector Rajiv Kumar Singh camped near the incident site till the situation was controlled.
