Kathmandu, November 26

A huge fire broke out in Gauri Shankar Furnishing at Buddhanagar near the UN Park today, gutting the property worth millions.

Head of Juddha Fire Brigade Badri Nagarkoti said it was one of the worst fires that he saw in his career. The blaze was controlled with six fire fighting trucks that carried water 10 times to control the fire. Similarly, the same number of water carrying trucks were also deployed at the scene by Metropolitan Traffic Police.

Fire fighters and police said the fire spread rapidly as much of the furniture were made of plastic, foam and wood, which easily caught fire.

All the fire fighting trucks with support of around 150 fire fighters and members of Nepali Army and Nepal Police took more than one-and-a-half hours to douse the fire.

Badri Nagarkoti said the factory had piles of foam used for making couches. Materials like plastic, wood and saw dust abounded in the two-ropani area. “The fire was so intense that a tank full of water had no effect. Luckly there were no structures around the factory that could catch fire.”

Factory owner Ram Karki said that probably the store room of the factory had caught fire, which had lots of foam and readymade furniture. “Workers were busy in the other segment of the factory when they saw smoke coming out from one section. But the fire was so intense that our effort was ineffective.”

He said fire fighting trucks had arrived at the scene after 15 minutes. He also claimed that property worth around 6 million rupees was gutted.

Three fire fighting trucks from Juddha Fire Brigade, two from Lalitpur  district, one from Bhaktpaur and one from Nepali Army were used to control the fire.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Homendra Bogati at Metropolitan Police Range, Kathmandu said that no exact reason for the fire was identified. However, electric short-circuit is suspected as the reason.