Rescue delayed 20 min: Nearest station had no fire tender crew

Nearly 20 critical minutes may have been lost in the response to the Hauz Rani bed-and-breakfast (B&B) fire that killed 21 people, including 12 foreign nationals, after the nearest fire station was unable to dispatch a fire tender because of an ongoing fire-control operation and a shortage of personnel, officials said.

- Karn Pratap Singh and Hemani Bhandari

The Geetanjali fire station, located barely 400-500 metres from Flourish Stay, was the closest fire station to the scene. But when calls reporting the blaze were made on Wednesday morning, one of its two fire tenders had been deployed to Jaunapur to tackle a garbage fire, while the second vehicle remained parked because there were no firefighters available to operate it, officials said.

Chief fire officer (CFO) AK Malik said the fire control room received a call at 7.34 am on Wednesday about a garbage fire at Jaunapur, near Jawahar Colony in south Delhi's Mandi village. "One fire tender (SWT-25) from Geetanjali fire station was deployed which returned at 9.55 am,” said Malik.

CFO said SWT-25 is the only fire tender posted at the Geetanjali fire station. However, two fire tenders were found stationed at the fire station when HT visited the site.