Bokaro deputy commissioner Mukesh Kumar on Tuesday ordered the Bokaro Steel plant management to conduct a safety audit in view of the major fire near the tar storage unit of the plant on Sunday night.

It took nine fire tenders of Bokaro Steel Limited (BSL) and Jharkhand Fire services two hours to douse the blaze, which erupted around 10.40pm on Sunday and gutted property worth crores of rupees. However, there was no causality and production work was not affected.

The DC, who is also chairman of District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), told the BSL management identify all other dangerous areas of the plant where such incidents can recur.

The DC’s notice instructed the plant management to submit a report to the DDMA office within 48 hours mentioning the causes, impact, safety measures taken, loss, technical and other aspects of Sunday’s incident.

The notice, served to BSL CEO P.K. Singh on Tuesday, instructed the management to take all necessary safety measures immediately to avoid recurrence of such incidents, and provide a detailed report on the measures taken. It also ordered the BSL CEO to follow the industrial safety guidelines of the National Disaster Management Authority and submit a compliance report to the Bokaro DDMA.

Shakti Kumar, district disaster management officer and secretary of the DDMA, said: “The instructions have been served to the BSL management under Section 30 (2) (V) of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.”

The BSL management has set up a committee to probe the fire in detail.

Mani Kant Dhan, chief of communication, BSL, said: “The preliminary report suggests that the fire broke out due to frictional spark in one of pumps of the combustible mixture preparation section, but the exact cause of the fire will be known only after a detailed enquiry.”