As many as five vegetable, fruit and grocery shops were gutted a fire that possibly erupted after midnight on Sunday here at cramped Daily Market, close to Ranchi Main Road, where fire tenders could not reach but the ingenuity of firemen saved the day.

Short-circuit is said to be the reason for the blaze at the market with a warren of alleys where fire tenders could not reach the point of the blaze from three approach sides. Ultimately, they had to fight the blaze by stationing fire tenders at Main Road, joining together long hose pipes to douse the flames with water.

Property worth around Rs 7 lakh was gutted but no casualty or injury was reported, again, possibly because the blaze erupted in the wee hours.

On Thursday night, a garments shop was gutted in a fire located at crowded Sonar Patti in Upper Bazaar. Like in the case of the Daily Market fire, firemen faced problem in coming close to the blaze owing to the congested and crowded road. On Sunday, The Telegraph published a report on the hurdles faced by firemen in the cramped and unplanned Upper Bazaar.

At Daily Market, the fire was first noticed around 2.30am by some shopkeepers who stay at Daily Market premises overnight. “There was this huge flame that we tried to control initially on our own. But we could not do so. Then we called the fire station,” said Tanveer Ali whose fruit shop was gutted in fire. He said that shops of four other shopkeepers Javed, Imtiyaz, Jahir and Raju were gutted.

Out of five shops three are situated on the ground floor and the rest two on the first floor of a building.

A fire department employee said they received a call at 3am at the Doranda fire station about the Daily Market fire.

“We rushed two fire tender vehicles but we faced a big problem in reaching the site of the fire. The approach roads are very narrow and congested. We tried from three different directions but failed. Ultimately, we stationed the fire tender on Main Road. We connected seven hose pipes, each measuring 100 metres, to fight the blaze. It took us over 90 minutes to control the fire,” said the fireman. “Prima facie, short-circuit seems to be the reason.”

Police also inspected the site on Sunday morning.