LPG gas cylinders and kerosene containers give fire the added speed to spread quickly, a senior fire department official said on Monday.
On Sunday night, more than eight LPG cylinders exploded after a few huts caught fire in Duttabad.
The explosions helped the fire spread rapidly. It took 10 fire engines and multiple fire teams more than two hours to bring the flames under control.
More than 100 shanties were gutted by then.
A senior fire officer said they had to be extremely cautious while fighting the blaze as an LPG cylinder would explode every now and then.
“We had a tough task at hand as we would douse the flames in one part of the shanties and seconds later an explosion would rock the area and we would see flames leaping up in another part,” said the fire officer.
A shift in fuel from wood and kerosene-fired stoves to LPG cooking gas ovens has taken place in most of the shanties in Salt Lake, a senior official of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation said.
Although this has made kitchens a more comfortable place as LPG gas ovens don’t emit large amounts of smoke and are odourless, they do pose a grave fire risk as huts are made out of flammable materials like bamboo and plastic.
In case of fires, like the one on Sunday night in Duttabad, the LPG cylinders triggered explosions.
According to another senior fire official, the explosions are powerful enough to cause fatal injuries.
“During any fire in a hut, we face the issue of exploding LPG cylinders. Apart from this, a lot of people store kerosene, diesel and petrol in plastic drums and these can turn into a deadly cocktail whenever a fire breaks out. We have to be extremely careful as the explosions caused by such inflammable fuels can result in fatalities or grave injuries for first responders like us as well as the residents,” said the officer.
Fire and emergency services minister Sujit Bose said that teams of firemen that fought Sunday’s fire had brought out more than a dozen LPG cylinders from the tenements after the fire.
“They were fortunate that these cylinders did not explode. While we cannot deny people a right to cook in a way that is comfortable, it’s also true that the presence of such cylinders creates a fire safety issue in shanties across the city,” Bose said.
Nirmal Dutta, the councillor of the Duttabad, said they had arranged for rehabilitation for those whose houses were destroyed in the fire.