The top floor of a residential building on AJC Bose Road, near the Nonapukur tram depot, caught fire on Sunday afternoon, entrapping residents inside.
Police said five persons, including a mother and her two children, had to be rescued from the building.
“The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained,” said a senior officer in the southeast division of Kolkata police.
“An explosion in an LPG cylinder or an electrical short-circuit might have caused the fire. We are yet to ascertain the cause. The fire department will be able to say only after a forensic examination is carried out.”
The fire was reported from an apartment on the third floor of a four-storey building at 181 AJC Bose Road, near the Nonapukur tram depot, around 4.30pm.
Five fire tenders were pressed into action to douse the flames.
“A woman and her two daughters were rescued from the fire-hit flat using a ladder. Two other residents from the second floor were rescued through the staircase,” said the officer.
Residents of the neighbourhood said they spotted flames coming out of a window on the third floor of the building and alerted the police and the fire brigade.
“We rushed inside the building but by then the fire had spread inside the room and we realised that it was beyond our control. There was a fire extinguisher on the ground floor which we used. The rescue work was done by the fire officials and the police,” said a resident of the neighbourhood.
The congested neighbourhood is lined with buildings that stand close to one another.
Residents of the adjoining building, too, were taken to a safer place as a precautionary measure.
State fire and emergency services minister Sujit Bose went to the spot.
The police said none of the people who were rescued was injured.
It took several hours for the fire brigade to extinguish the flames.
The police said the forensic team would be able to examine the spot only after the building cools down.