Hyderabad: For over 12 hours, a major fire that broke out at a cotton godown on the city outskirts near Shadnagar on Saturday morning continued to rage. The incident occurred around at a warehouse belonging to Sri Krishna Industries in Nandigama, Rangareddy. However, officials said there were no injuries or casualties.The fire dept received a distress call at around 8:08 am, following which two fire tenders from Shadnagar were rushed to the spot. As the intensity of the blaze increased, an additional four fire engines from nearby stations were deployed along with a bronto skylift. Firefighters have been attempting to douse the flames by pulling out cotton bundles and using water pumped from a nearby canal.According to officials, the godown, spread across nearly 2,900 sq metres, was stocked with large quantities of cotton belonging to the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI), making firefighting operations difficult due to the highly combustible nature of the material.District fire officer (DFO-3) Murli Manohar Reddy said limited access to the godown hampered their firefighting efforts. “The godown could not be accessed from both sides due to heavy flames and dense smoke. It may take until late night or even Sunday morning to fully contain the blaze.”Preliminary inputs suggest no immediate evidence of electrical short circuit, though lightning during heavy cloud cover the previous night is being considered as a possible cause. “The exact reason and extent of property loss will be determined after a detailed investigation involving the Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC),” added Reddy.
