Hyderabad: Telangana director general of fire services Y Nagi Reddy, on Monday, May 19, refuted the allegations from various quarters, including eyewitnesses and relatives of the victims of the Gulzar Houz fire accident, that fire tenders lacked sufficient water or breathing equipment.
In a statement through ‘FactCheck_Telangana,’ which verifies fake news and misinformation on social media, Reddy has termed the allegations misleading and false.
Posting a video of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president KT Rama Rao, who earlier alleged the lack of training to firefighters, FactCheck_Telangana has marked his claim as ‘false’. The post contained Nagi Reddy’s version of the rescue efforts.
Reddy, who described the house that caught fire as “a furnace tunnel—with only a single entry and exit point.” He said that despite extreme conditions, the fire was extinguished within two hours.
“The watchman and neighbours are witnesses to the effort,” he stated.
Another allegation, which the director general vehemently dismissed, was that the fire tenders failed to reach the accident spot and the tankers were not full.
“I would accept if someone says water ran out during the operation, but not false claims that the tankers weren’t filled. Filling the engines and tankers is a mandatory routine, and video evidence is available to confirm this,” he said, adding that the fire department has documented evidence that all tankers were filled the night before.
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He further said that the Moghulpura Fire Station, located a kilometre away from Gulzar Houz, received a distress call at 6:16 am on May 18. He claimed the fire tenders reached the site by 6:20 am, and the district fire officer also arrived by then.
“A total of eight fire tenders and three water tankers were deployed. Each fire tender carries 4,500 litres of water, and each water tanker holds 8,000–9,000 litres,” he noted.
Also dismissing the allegations that no breathing apparatus was available, he claimed that eight sets of breathing apparatus were deployed along with the firefighters.
