'Sudden winds reignited the fire unexpectedly, it was a horrific experience'

MUMBAI: "It was a horrific feeling, getting trapped on the terrace while almost three floors under us were on fire, blocking the stairway," said Sunil Nesrekar, deputy fire officer of Mumbai Fire Brigade, visibly shaken amidst a steady drizzle on Friday.

Nesrekar was one of the officers called in to fight the blaze which broke out in a 22-storey commercial building in Andheri, a western suburb in Mumbai. Nursing his wounds and scars, and struggling to come to terms with the loss of a colleague, Nesrekar tried to put up a brave face despite a sense of vulnerability .

We climbed to the eighteenth floor and then went up to control the fire, but sudden winds fanned the fire on the 21st floor, and we had no time to climb back," recounted Nesrekar.

"I have worked in the fire department for over two decades, but never got trapped before. As many as 33 of us were stuck on the terrace for over half an hour as the fire raged because of heavy winds. At times, the fire was dangerously close, snarling at us in the wind. We had to back off to a small corner of the scaffolding, which wasn't big enough for all of us," said Nesrekar, who managed to survive the blaze.

His colleague Nitin Iwalekar, however, wasn't so lucky . Iwalekar, who was also trapped on the top floor, died due to suffocation from the plumes of smoke.

"Our colleagues had already sounded a brigade call (highest emergency call of the fire department) and asked for help from the coast guard. We did not know how soon the coast guard choppers would come as the fire was raging all over. Finally , after over half an hour, we saw the coast guard's Chetak chopper over us and we felt reassured," Nesrekar said.

"The blaze, which started on the 21st floor and spread to other floors, was brought under control after that." The reasons for the fire are not known yet.

"We received the first call at around 10 am and reached the spot in 20 minutes. The building was vacant because it was a commercial tower and offices had not yet opened. The parked vehicles below were moved away and people were asked to leave the surrounding areas. Shops were shut down too," said another officer RA Shinde.

"The firemen went up to the eighteenth floor and from there they controlled the fire. It appeared to be under control, so they went up to check the top floor. That was when a sudden burst of wind reignited the fire on the floors below and our men got trapped," Maharashtra's Fire Safety Director Milindkumar Deshmukh told reporters.

Mumbai Mayor Sunil Prabhu told ET that this building did not have a proper fire control mechanism and did not follow the mandatory fire safety drills. Prabhu said that the BMC would investigate the cause of the fire.

Bollywood actor Hritik Roshan, who has three offices in the building, visited the site to take stock of the damage.