Surat: A massive fire broke out on the fifth floor of Salasar Textile Market in the Saroli area on Wednesday, gutting at least four shops and destroying textile stock stored inside. Authorities said no casualties were reported.Multiple teams were rushed to the spot as thick smoke spread through the market complex. Fire officials said the structure has double-height shops, making the fifth floor equivalent to the height of the 10th floor in a regular commercial building. The unusually large storage spaces, along with heavy textile inventory, intensified the blaze and caused extensive losses.Firefighters also found several textile parcels stacked in the lobbies, which officials said could have helped the flames spread across the entire building and made access to the fire location more difficult. To contain the blaze, fire and emergency services deployed teams from 15 fire stations. Around 100 firefighters and 20 fire vehicles were involved in the operation. The fire was brought under control after nearly three hours, following which the market was sealed.The firefighting teams discovered that the market’s water tank was empty and the pump for firefighting was non-functional. Officials noted that the no-objection certificate (NOC) for the market’s fire-prevention infrastructure had been renewed in Feb by a fire safety officer agency. The building management has been instructed to make required changes and meet safety conditions before the seal can be removed.Meanwhile, the investigation into the fire at Saroli’s Shyam Sangini Textile Market, which took place exactly a week ago on Sep 9, is yet to identify the person who was caught on camera making suspicious movement in the building before the fire erupted.In a separate incident, a scrap warehouse operating in a tin shed caught fire at Bhindi Bazaar in Bhestan on Wednesday. Fire services received a call around 3.27pm and deployed firefighting teams to prevent the fire from spreading to nearby establishments. No casualties were reported, but waste material stored in the warehouse was destroyed. The fire was controlled by the fire teams.
