Just imagine when citizens face hardships to get potable water in the ongoing peak summer season, thousands of litres of water had to be used in firefighting operations on Saturday as Margao Municipal Council’s mini-waste dump near the KTC bus stand was again engulfed by fire.
The Margao Municipal Council could have helped save the water used by the fire brigade from going waste by immediately moving its machinery and arrange mud to cap the spot, but in vain.
At the end of the day, the Margao fire brigade used around 60,000 litres of precious drinking water from the Selaulim water pipeline in the firefighting operation with the Margao Municipal Council caught napping in arranging the mud or machinery to cap the fire.
The Goan understands that the fire brigade had sent an SOS to the Margao Municipal Council on Saturday morning to immediately arrange mud and machinery to cap the fire. Till late Saturday evening, neither the machinery nor the mud arrived at the spot, leaving the fire brigade with no option than to continuously use the drinking water to bring the fire under control.
Sources informed that the Margao fire brigade received the call around 10 am that the mini-waste dump near the KTC bus stand has caught fire. The fire brigade is believed to have immediately sent a 12,000 litre capacity bowser to the spot. “Since the dump plays host to dry and garden waste, the fire spread to the entire site. The methane gas generated at the site further aggravated the situation,” a fireman informed.
After the fire officials realised that the solution in capping the fire is mud, they are believed to have sent an SOS to the powers that be in the Margao Municipal Council to immediately arrange mud and machinery at the site. “We had asked for the machinery to churn the waste as part of the firefighting operations. Besides, we requested the civic body to immediately arrange mud to cap the fire,” informed an official.
While the civic body did not turn the plea to arrange machinery and mud at the site, the mud did not arrive at the site till late Saturday evening.
In the meantime, the fire brigade is believed to have used additional bowsers to bring the fire under control, but in vain. “We tap the water to refill the bowsers and fire tenders from the fire hydrants. The water used by the fire brigade in the firefighting operations is drinking water. We could have saved the water from going waste had the civic body moved in quickly to arrange the mud,” the official added.
Besides water going waste, fire officials informed that the bowsers consume a lot of diesel in the firefighting operations, adding that frequent use of bowsers in the firefighting operations exhaust the diesel quota allotted to the fire station.
