A fire mishap at the congested Hirapur Hatia market gutted 13 makeshift shops and caused loss of property of more than Rs 15lakh on Saturday morning.

Prima facie, short circuit has been attributed for the fire but the detailed cause is likely to be ascertained only after an enquiry.

The fire started at around 1:30am following which a team of fire brigade reached the site along with two fire tenders after being informed by police and controlled the fire in around two and a half hours.

Senior officials of the district administration led by Prashant Kumar Layak, Dhanbad Circle Officer, who reached the site took stock of the fire situation and also took details of insurance papers and other documents of the affected shopkeepers.

Chandrashekhar Agarwal, former Dhanbad mayor and Raj Sinha, Dhanbad MLA held talks with Prashant Kumar Layak, and Sandeep Kumar, Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner with regard to monetary compensation for the affected shopkeepers.

“Majority of fire victims are small time traders selling fruits, vegetables, puja paraphernalia, disposable thermocol cup-plate-glass-bowl-lunch boxes and birthday decorative items,” said Raj Sinha.

Shopkeepers search for the leftovers from their gutted shops. Gautam Dey

Former mayor Chandrashekhar Agarwal said, “Altogether 13 persons have lost their source of livelihood as they lost all their financial capital in the fire and now it is time to help them regain their livelihood for which we are working earnestly.”

“We received information about the incident about fire over phone and immediately rushed to the site at around 2 am and controlled the fire till 2.30 pm but the fire was completely doused at around 4 am,” said district fire officer Vinod Kumar to Telegraph Online.

“Altogether 12,000 litres of water in three tankers of 4000 litres each were used to completely douse the fire however only two fire tenders were used during the entire operation,” said Kumar and added that they have not yet received any application for compensation.

This is the second incident of major fire in a market area of Dhanbad as a total of 35 makeshift shops were also gutted in a fire that took place in steel gate market about 5km from district headquarter during the night of Holi festival as the fire was caused due to a blast that took place in an illegally operated LPG refilling shop situated in the market.