People demand immediate establishment proposed fire service station at Sheeri Narvaw
Reyaz Rashid
Sheeri: A three story residential house was completely destroyed and property worth lakhs of rupees was reduced to ashes when fire broke out mysteriously in Sheeri village in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district on Tuesday.
Victim house owner Mohammad Ramzan Dar son of Abdul Aziz Dar told Kashmir Images that fire broke out under mysterious circumstances from upper story of my residential house spread quickly because there was haystack and allied winter stock stored in the upper story of the residential house.
“As people raised alarm after witnessing fire flames erupting from the rooftop of the residential house, locals tired to extinguish the fire but it went out of control spreading in the entire house in jiffy. The fire tenders were called but till the fire tenders reached Sheeri from Baramulla, the fire has destroyed entire house caused extensive damage in which property worth lakhs of rupees was destroyed,” witness said.
“We reached immediately after receiving the call but we have to travel 7 kilometers so it took some till fire has caused large scale damage. Locals joined by Army had already started fighting operation but we controlled fire and put it off immediately,” said a fire service man busying in fighting fire.
People of the Sheeri Narwav area which is comprising of 40 villages have been demanding fire station from last 10 years from several years but successive regimes failed to provide the fire station to the huge area where incidents of fire often cause massive destruction due to non-availability of fire tenders and after an 11 year old was charred to death in 2015, the then government had promised fire station in Sheeri but nothing was done so far.
Pertinently, the then Deputy Commissioner Baramulla Peerzada Mushtaq Ahmed who had taken up the matter with concern department by writing a letter bearing number DCB/PS/343-45 dated 30-04-2015 in which he has requested Director General Fire and Emergency Srinagar to take immediate appropriate measures for setting up a fire station at Sheeri.
Besides the then Directorate General Fire & Emergency Services Jammu and
Kashmir Dr. Ghulam Ahmad Bhat had also recommended establishment of a fire station at Sheeri and government has issued orders in this regard but later nothing happened on ground.
Recently, Deputy Directorate General Fire & Emergency Services has sought identification of land for establishment of various fire stations which include Sheeri and 12 other locations but nothing seem to happen on ground.