Ghaziabad: A fire at a locked flat of a society in Crossing Republik Township gutted the home’s interiors on Sunday. No injuries were reported, officials and residents said, adding the blaze on the 10th floor of Tower 7 at GH-7 was “contained”. The owners were out of town. While the cause of the blaze is yet to be known, the society’s fire team alleged that a sky shot cracker or rocket crackers “hit the plastic pigeon net” in the flat’s balcony and the fire spread from there to the outdoor units of two air conditioners, which exploded.After the fire department received the call around 8pm, three fire tenders and a hydraulic platform were deployed. “The fire was completely extinguished,” chief fire officer Saurabh Singh said. As a precaution, the fire department asked all residents to vacate the building and they were alerted through a WhatsApp message. Fire department officials said the flat was filled with toxic smoke, so firefighters entered wearing breathing apparatus sets and the fire was stopped from spreading to other flats. Household goods were burned. Firefighters rescued a fish from an aquarium in the flat.Earlier, the society’s fire staffers took 10-15 minutes to break the lock. “Our guard rushed to the flat. We tried calling the owners but could not reach them,” GH-7 resident and member of the apartment owners’ association (AOA) Sumit Srivastava said. The fire staff and maintenance team informed the fire department, after which police, an ambulance and fire vehicles arrived.“The fire spread very fast from the balcony into the rooms,” Srivastava said. The in-house fire team first used hydrant pipes and extinguishers from a common balcony. Once the door was open, they used the hydrant line on each floor and used its pressure to stop the blaze from reaching other floors. Maintenance staff also shut off the IGL gas supply.Srivastava said a neighbour heard something rattle on the plastic shed above the flat before the fire spread to the balcony and then the room, but how a firecracker may have reached there is being examined. Srivastava said the AOA had circulated guidelines before Diwali against using crackers, especially rockets and sky shots, as it does every year.“All our NOCs and fire safety equipment are in place and working. We do regular checks and drills every month and also held one before Diwali,” he said. He recalled one earlier major fire, in 2024 on the first floor of Tower 3, caused by diyas and decorations while the residents were away. Across Ghaziabad, the fire department received about 50 calls till midnight, including calls from industrial units and godowns. No loss of life was reported and over 70 people were rescued.
