A fire broke out in Kalimpong on Saturday, right after midnight, exposing the district headquarters' lack of preparedness to tackle major fire-related incidents in the civic area.

Six shops and a residential house were completely gutted in a fire that started around 12.30pm at 11th Mile in Kalimpong.

“Six families were also residing at the rear end of the six shops. Entire structures that were adjacent to each other were completely gutted in the fire,” said a source.

No casualties were reported in the fire, the source added.

Fire tenders along with army personnel and local people could bring the blaze under control after nearly four hours. Probe is on to determine the cause of the fire.

However, without a fire hydrant in the area, Kalimpong municipality personnel had to disrupt a water supply line from a distribution tank in the locality to supply water to douse the flames.

There is only one functional fire hydrant at the moment in Kalimpong town, which is at the opposite end of the town and could not have helped in this case.

“I told Subin Pradhan, urban planner of Kalimpong municipality who is also looking after the water works department to disrupt the water supply line to divert water at the site of the incident,” said Rabi Pradhan, the chairman of the board of administrators, Kalimpong municipality.

The Kalimpong civic chief admitted that there was only one functional hydrant in town near the Kalimpong correctional home at Thana Dara.

“The fire took place at the opposite end of the site of the fire hydrant. It would have been impossible to get fire tankers to fill water from this hydrant,” said Pradhan.

During any fire incident in Kalimpong, only this hydrant near Thana Dara is made operational.

Civic authorities admit that there used to be more fire hydrants in the past but most were destroyed after the 1986 agitation phase in Darjeeling and Kalimpong for Gorkhaland.

“As of now, I have noticed that there are three other hydrants in town, near Raja Dorjee market gate, at CK Chowk and at Kalimpong Motor Stand. We do not know if they work,” said Pradhan.

On why they had failed to set up a proper water hydrant system in place, the civic boss said the water distribution system was handed over to the Kalimpong municipality only a year ago. “Till then, it was under the PHE department,” said Pradhan.

The civic chief said they would make three hydrants functional.

Fire hydrants are important in hilly regions as fire tenders cannot always access all areas due to narrow roads.

In tinderbox Darjeeling, the situation is dire. Of the 113 fire hydrants during the 1950s, only about 20 exist now.