PANAJI
As Goa swelters under extreme heat increasing the risk of fires, the State reported a massive 70 incidents of fire in the last 24 hours.
With open fields or dry grass catching fire to even cashew plantations in flames, these incidents kept the firefighters on their toes.
In one such incident, a locked house at St Cruz was more than partly gutted with the department officials describing it "quite an exercise especially with the State cyclone mock drill simultaneously in play." The fire fighters took a few hours to douse huge flames. The cause of fire is however not known.
While Saturday saw around 35 fire incidents, a hill near Quepem caught fire in the late hours. The fire was visible from far off places. Fire fighters rushed to the spot and were involved in fire fighting till going to the press.
Another fire was also reported at Padal Hill in Bethora.
In Colva, tragedy struck a family at midnight when two houses along with the household goods, including gold ornaments, were completely gutted in an inferno, destroying property worth lakhs of rupees.
The incident occurred around midnight when the two houses located near the Church were engulfed by a massive fire. Within minutes, the two houses were reduced to ashes, leaving the occupants without shelter.
Besides gold ornaments, the fire did not spare school books and uniforms of the children who were preparing for the ensuing SSC preliminary examination as they were all gutted.
In Curtorim, a jeep and a car were destroyed in a major fire in the wee hours of Saturday while in Curchorem, a grocery store was completely destroyed. The store is located on the ground floor of City Center building at Curchorem.
