Fire breaks out at LIC office in Vile Parle, no casualties

Mumbai: A level-2 fire was reported on the second floor of the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) building at SV Road in Vile Parle (West) on Saturday morning.

According to the Mumbai Fire Brigade (MFB) officials, the fire was reported around 6:59am. A total of eight firefighting engines and jumbo tankers were pressed into operation. After a six-hour-long fire operation, the flames were extinguished around 1:30 pm. The MFB officials informed that the flames originated from the second floor of the ground plus two structures and that no injuries were reported.

Hemant Parab, chief fire officer (CFO) said that the LIC building didn’t have any active inbuilt firefighting system. He added that the office is more than 50-years-old as it could have been built between 1960-70.

“The Maharashtra Fire Safety Act was implemented in 2009. This act mandated the installation of in-house firefighting systems in the buildings and properties that were being constructed or have been constructed around or after 2006. The LIC building doesn’t fall under this act as it is around 50-years-old,” Parab said on Saturday.

“However, we will carry out an investigation and inquire about the actual cause of the blaze. The fire erupted in the early morning, so we need to check if there was any suspicious activity that was carried out inside the premises on the night before,” said Parab.

Meanwhile, the LIC group in a statement that read, “Fire services have deployed fire brigades to arrest the fire and they are bringing it under control. There are no casualties or issues affecting personnel. The data centre of the corporation which is housed nearby is safe and precautionary measures have been taken to protect our IT assets. All our critical IT assets for providing service to customers have adequate Disaster Recovery set up in place. Hence there would not be any problem in providing services to customers.”