Fire on Aravali Hills: Farmhouses damaged, animals hurt

A part of the Aravali Hill on the Gurgaon-Faridabad Road was on fire on Wednesday afternoon due to a short circuit in the high tension wires. The fire had spread over to more than 100 acre of land. The flames spread so fast that a few farmhouses were partially engulfed in its flames apart from the forested land.

Fire officials said that no one was injured in the blaze but at least three farmhouses were partially damaged.

There were thousands of trees and plants in and around the hill among which at least 100 acre of land with trees and plants was damaged in the incident near Ghatta village.

The speed at which wind was flowing caused the fire to spread across a larger area of land than could have expected, added a fire official.

The people living in the farmhouses near and around the foothill had informed the fire department about the incident. When people called the fire brigade office, the dialled landline telephone number was found to be “out of service”. The mobile number of Gurgaon’s chief fire officer also responded with service provider’s recorded message saying “Invalid or incorrect number”.

People then called a private fire service that brought in about 7-8 fire tenders with them to douse the blaze. It took these tenders close to three hours to douse these flames.

Sources also said that a few wild animals to whom the foothill is there home were also caught in the fire and were injured.

An owner whose farmhouse was affected revealed that at first the fire tenders from ASF (a real estate developer rendering out Facility Management Services) had reached the spot as the Chief Fire Officer’s number was not reachable. Once the information reached others, the fire tenders from both DLF Phase V and Sector 29 reached the spot and got the fire under control by 4 in the evening.