Fire ravages fibre-sheet factory in Mohali

Goods worth lakhs were reduced to ashes after a major fire broke out in a fibre sheet factory in Phase 5, Industrial Area, on Wednesday.

Assistant divisional fire officer Mohan Lal Verma said they received information about the fire around 4.40 pm and sent six fire tenders to the spot.

“It took them two hours to douse the fire that seems to have been caused by a short-circuit. Since the factory housed fibre sheets, the fire spread very fast and not much could be salvaged,” he said.

Around 50 workers were present in the factory and escaped unhurt.

Factory owner Vijay Kumar said he could not immediately determine the exact scale of damage, but he had suffered losses worth lakhs.

Verma said the factory had no fire safety arrangements in place and will be served a notice.

Notably, for the past three years, the municipal corporation has been issuing around 600 notices to fire-safety violators each year, but the violators have never been penalised.

The violators include owners of high-rise buildings, commercial establishments and industrial units, who have failed to obtain no-objection certificates for fire safety.