Hyderabad: After nearly 30 hours of continuous firefighting, a massive blaze at a cotton godown near Shadnagar was finally brought under control on Sunday evening. The fire broke out at Sri Krishna Industries warehouse in Nandigama, Rangareddy, on Saturday around 8 am. Officials confirmed that no injuries or casualties were reported.A total of six fire tenders and around 40 firefighters were deployed to battle the flames for over two days. The operation proved challenging due to dense smoke and highly combustible cotton stocks stored inside the warehouse. On Sunday morning, firefighters had to break into the structure to continue operations. “The fire almost raged for 30 hours as huge quantity of cotton was there. We had to dismantle the structure; otherwise, we were not able to douse the fire completely,” said district fire officer (DFO-3) Murali Manohar Reddy.Fire personnel pumped water from a nearby canal and adopted a strategy of pulling out cotton bundles to contain the fire. The godown, spread across nearly 2,900 square metres, reportedly housed around 20,800 cotton bales belonging to the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI).Officials said that the exact cause of the fire is still under investigation, while the extent of property loss is yet to be assessed. “The CCI will tell us soon and based on that we can tell,” Reddy added. On Saturday, after preliminary investigation, officials suspected that a lightning strike on Friday night may have triggered the fire.
