A fire in a residential apartment that is suspected to have started from crackers after midnight on Thursday led to an explosion and left its chartered accountant owner severely injured.

Many residents of Ultadanga’s Natural View housing complex were at the Kali puja pandal on the ground below when they saw flames in a 12th-floor flat.

Mukesh Balasia, 40, a chartered accountant, who was also at the pandal, rushed upstairs to rescue his mother and douse the flames. A gas cylinder is suspected to have exploded when he entered his apartment.

Balasia’s mother, however, had managed to come out of the flat before the explosion and walked down a few steps.

Eyewitnesses said the explosion led to a big ball of fire and burnt Balasia. He has been admitted to SSKM Hospital.

It is still not clear how the fire broke out inside the flat.

Kolkata Police said in a statement on Friday that the “fire is suspected to have been caused by bursting of firecrackers”.

The fire started “in a heap of garments on the balcony”, the statement said. The family had kept an LPG cylinder on the balcony.

State fire minister Sujit Bose said the fire brigade suspected that either a lamp burning inside the flat ignited the fire or some burning material such as a fragment of a live cracker made its way into the apartment.

“A forensic examination will reveal the cause of the fire,” Bose said.

Balasia was at the pandal with wife Puja and their seven-year-old daughter when the flames were first spotted. “He rushed upstairs as his mother was inside the flat,” said Sutapa Banerjee, the president of the residents’ welfare association of Natural View.

“The flames intensified after the explosion. Those of us on the ground saw the flames suddenly growing large and leaping out of the balcony,” said Banerjee.

“Balasia managed to walk down the stairs. After reaching the ground floor he said he should be taken to hospital,” Banerjee said.

In their statement, the police said “the fire spread in the room and damaged the electrical appliances injuring the person”.

Several residents said Balasia was responding to treatment and spoke with his family on Friday.

Om Prakash Singh, a resident who accompanied Balasia as he rushed upstairs, said that after checking that his mother was safely out, Balasia grabbed a fire extinguisher from the stairway and ran into the apartment.

Singh said he was around five to six feet behind Balasia and was about to enter the flat when he heard a deafening sound and was flung at least 10 feet back.

Natural View has two towers, each with 14 floors. There are 167 flats. The 18-year-old housing complex is located close to Ultadanga railway station.

As word of the fire spread, the police and the councillor of Ward 13, Anindya Kishore Routh, reached the complex. “Everyone was panic-stricken. We went up and evacuated many residents,” he said.

“The fire-fighting system of the housing complex did not work though the residents had hired a company to maintain the fire-fighting infrastructure,” Routh said.

A third party had inspected the fire-fighting system of the complex on October 31, residents said.

The fire that broke out around 1am on Friday was doused by 3.40am. Three
fire tenders were sent to the spot.

A senior fire department official said they suspected the fire had started from a heap of clothes on the balcony. “It is possible that a flaming firecracker had landed on the garments. We have collected samples and the cause of the blaze will be known after the forensic report comes,” said the fire official.