The city’s favourite eat street has had a scarred history of fire hazards.

Tuesday’s fire revived in many Park Street veterans the horrors of March 23, 2010, when a fire at Stephen Court claimed 43 lives.

But most of them said the firefighting preparedness in Park Street establishments has improved over the years.

“Everybody is afraid of fire. There are many things you can get away with. But fire is not one of them. Fire is something that draws no distinction. If it comes, it hits you very badly. But I must say that the fire department is very stringent now. They do audits periodically,” Nitin Kothari, the owner of Mocambo, Peter Cat and Peter Hu?, told Metro.

Peter Cat, an old favourite of many, is housed on the ground floor of Stephen Court, an L-shaped building spread over 2 lakh square feet. On the fateful day, 14 years ago, Kothari was at Peter Cat. He also remembers some of the other accidents.

Like an explosion — later attributed to a leak in an LPG cylinder — at a McDonald’s outlet on the morning of August 12, 2007, a Sunday. It had sent the shop’s shutters flying across Park Street, resulting in the death of a bystander.

Four employees of the outlet had suffered severe burns. The burger-and-fries chain that sports the Golden Arches signage has now left Park Street.

On November 3, 2014, a fire broke out at Olypub. No one was injured as the pub was closed at the time.

“In a restaurant, where you are dealing with fire, the chances (of a blaze) could be more. You have to keep the fire burning for 15 hours a day. Problems happen when people become lethargic and negligent. You are dealing with certain workers who are not very educated and don’t understand that even an oversight can lead to a tragedy,” said Kothari.

But every time a fire breaks out, a set of questions crops up. Are norms being followed? Are the fire drills being conducted? Are the authorities watching for violations?

Conversations off the record with many suggested the answer would be a “no” to many such questions.

Are things as bad as 2010? Possibly no. Have we done enough? No.

Debashis Guha Niyogi, 53, secretary of Stephen Court Welfare, an association of the building’s residential and commercial occupants, has had several brushes with fire.

The Stephen Court resident has another flat, at 3B Camac Street, right next to the building from where the fire was reported on Tuesday. “Wherever I go, fire follows me. I received at least 20 phone calls in three hours today,” said Guha Niyogi.

The thick smoke billowing out of the building gave Guha Niyogi’s mother a “panic attack”.

Guha Niyogi said there has been a “lot of improvement” since the 2010 tragedy. “We now have a reservoir that stores 3 lakh litres of water that can be used to douse the flames. It is connected to all the floors with hydrants,” he said.

Shreekant Servaia, 53, whose family has had business interests in the Park Street area since the early 1940s, echoed Guha Niyogi.