LAHORE: A forensic team has found evidence of a short-circuit which caused May 5 eruption of a fire at the Shahpur Kanjran cattle market -- Punjab’s biggest point for trade of animals.

At the same time, a team of the Emergence Services Department (ESD) has mentioned in its brief report that unavailability of hydrants, fire extinguishers, fire alarm, emergency signs etc were among the reasons behind eruption of a fire which burnt 315 of the 591 bamboo sheds made for cattle besides killing eight goats.

“The forensic team visited the Shahpur Kanjran cattle market on Saturday and found some evidence of a short-circuiting that caused eruption of fire and its fast spread due to blowing of wind. As per loss estimates, the fire burnt 315 of the total 591 bamboo cattle sheds besides killing / burning eight goats alive. The total loss value is over Rs4 million,” Local Government & Community Development Department Director General Ms Kausar Khan told Dawn on Saturday.

“The fire after eruption spread within minutes and burnt a number of sheds,” said Ms Khan who also heads the Punjab Cattle Market Development and Management Company -- a subsidiary of the LG&CDD.

According to the ESD report, after receipt of emergency call, the control room immediately dispatched vehicles which responded to the emergency site within 12 minutes.

According to the staff, a fire occurred in animals’ huts. The intensity of the fire was very high as it was in a fully developed phase and spreading due to wind. The fire was controlled after aggressive fire-fighting of three hours and then the cooling process was carried out.

“The location was thoroughly investigated and it has been seen with grave concern that there was no hydrant installed for water availability on the site. Moreover, there was no fire extinguisher, emergency sign or fire alarm system for detection & suppression purposes. The path was not paved which obstructed access to the incident site.

Therefore, it can be concluded that the fire safety arrangements were not available at the incident site,” reads the report.

Responding to a question, the DG said though no fire hydrants were installed there, the water tanks to deal with such situation were there.

“Our staff also helped the fire-fighters extinguish the fire,” she said. She said due to not having ownership title of the most of land,

the department (cattle market company) couldn’t take adequate arrangements in connection with regulating the sheds.

“However, we have recently moved a summary to the department to get the land, which is currently in the name of the Punjab Agriculture Marketing Company (Pamco), transferred in the name of MCL / LG&CD, enabling us to invest in making good arrangements for regulating the affairs of market,” she said.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2022