Prompt action tames fire at Secretariat

SHILLONG: A fire broke out at the data processing room of the North Treasury on the ground floor of the 3rd Secretariat Building here on Thursday morning, but a tragedy was averted thanks to the intervention of the Meghalaya Secretariat Home Guard personnel who doused the flames on time.
The fire was first detected by Jeralina Lyngdoh, a cleaner, around 7.30 am.
Lyngdoh saw smoke billowing out of the locked room and alerted the home guards on the ground floor, said Paul Shylla, Public Relations Officer, Civil Defence and Home Guards.
Shylla said the home guard personnel led by Naik Badal Das and Lance Naik Raj Kumar rushed to the room and broke open the lock to gain entry braving the flames and thick smoke that was billowing out of the room.
They promptly contacted the Secretariat linesman to disconnect the electric line.
) The home guards used buckets of water to douse the flames which had engulfed a wooden partition and reduced around two computer tables and chairs to ashes.
“The whole room was filled with thick black smoke. Fiery flames up to three feet high were ravaging the wooden partition in the room. Although the smoke was suffocating, my only thought was that the fire had to be extinguished or else it would have easily spread to the adjoining rooms of the building,” said Uday Kumar, a home guard jawan who played an important role in taming the flames.
Sub-inspector Hendro Shabong, who was also involved in extinguishing the fire, said the flames were finally extinguished around 8 am after multiple buckets of water had been splashed. He said the fire and emergency services was contacted as was the police control room.