A fire broke out on the third and fourth floor of a five-storey building at the crossing of Pollock Street and Hare Street on Monday.

The fire in central Calcutta brought back memories of the fire at Nandaram market, barely 600m from the spot, 12 years ago.

People of the area spotted thick black fumes emanating from the building, painted in white, at 18B Brabourne Road around 4.45pm. The building, known locally as PNB Building, has several offices across the floors.

The fire brigade was alerted and members of the city police’s disaster management group joined in after a while. It took at least 22 fire engines to bring the blaze under control. Police said there were no casualties.

The building, located amidst offices and wholesale markets in Dalhousie, posed a challenge for the fire brigade as the area has several multi-storey buildings in narrow lanes.

Hydraulic ladders were used and a joint team of cops and firefighters began work on dousing the flames. Traffic on Brabourne Road was diverted and the area cordoned off.

Most offices in the building were shut and the few that had opened in the morning had almost downed their shutters for the day by the time the leaping flames could be spotted from a distance.

Firefighters and members of the disasters management group helped people struggling to get down the stairs of the building. Most of them were guards and members of the building’s maintenance team who live in the building, the police said.

“One person had to be rescued from the rooftop,” Firhad Hakim, chairman of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation’s board of administrators, said.

He was later identified as Gopa Bondhu Das, 52, a liftman. He was taken to SSKM Hospital where he was treated and discharged.

Hakim had turned up at the site, along with fire and police officers. Sujit Bose, the fire and emergency services minister, joined Hakim to oversee the firefighting.

“It is still not clear how the fire began. A forensic test will be carried out on Tuesday. The fire was brought under control in three hours,” Bose said.

“We were worried because several buildings are close to the one that caught fire,” a person in the area said. “The hydraulic ladders were very helpful.”