HYDERABAD: Major fire broke out at the Sanjeeviah park on Friday. Officials suspect the fire was started by an unextinguished cigarette butt thrown on the heaps of dried leaves and garbage piled up for vermicomposting by some walker. It was a second such fire accident in the park in the last six months.
Close to 8 lakh saplings of 30 different varieties, grown next to the garbage dumps for the purpose of sale, escaped the fire. Had they too caught fire, the HMDA might have incurred a loss of about `50 lakh. The varieties include jasmine, peepal and aloe vera among.
The fire broke out at about 1:00 pm near a nursery of the HMDA at Gate No. 2 of the park. At least, three fire-tenders were used to control the fire that reduced all the heaps of garbage to ashes within a few hours. Now on, walkers will not be allowed around the nursery area where the fire broke out, officials said.
“Frisking was not done earlier and from now on we will do that. There would be more checks done in order to avoid these mishaps. The person who might have thrown the cigarette might not have understood the gravity of the loss that it can inflict,” said B Srinivas, Conservator of Forest and Director, Urban Forestry, HMDA.About two tonnes of garbage, sourced from the nearby Lumbini Park and NTR Park, was kept by the HMDA in the park to harvest vermicompost. But even before the process could be started, the heap of garbage became a heap of ash, the civic officials said.