Fire breaks out in Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam storeroom

The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) management was pushed into an awkward situation with two fire accidents rocking the Tirumala town in less than a span of three days. While the first incident occurred inside the temple kitchen on Saturday, the second broke out in the early hours of Tuesday at the TTD’s massive Matrusri Tarigonda Vengamamba Annaprasadam complex situated less than a furlong opposite to the main temple complex.

The complex staff, who first noticed thick smoke emerging out of the storeroom around 5.30 a.m., immediately alerted the on-duty security staff who, in turn, informed the fire fighting personnel who rushed to the spot in no time.

Thick smoke billowing out of the storeroom prevented the fire staff from entering the mammoth complex where on an average over 30,000 pilgrims are offered free meals everyday. Four fire tenders, including two from Tirupati, were rushed to the spot in addition to a couple of water tankers. After fighting it for over three hours, the situation was brought under control but the fire personnel could not completely douse the fire which re-surfaced at intervals.

The TTD’s vigilance and security sleuths, besides the Octopus team and the local police who joined the operation which lasted till eleven a.m., finally brought the fire under control after breaking open a wall of the storeroom.

While several quintals of rice and pulses besides other ingredients kept in the storeroom were either gutted or drenched due to the intense pumping of water (that formed part of the operation), the food which was already cooked even before the break of fire in the adjoining kitchen was wasted was disposed of in tractors.

The mishap nevertheless resulted in an interesting blame game between the Annadanam authorities and the TTD electrical officials. While the former attributed the cause to an electrical short-circuit, the latter pointed out at thousands of empty jute bags needlessly stashed in the storeroom.

Meanwhile the Tirumala based TTD Joint Executive Officer, who supervised the rescue operations till the end, appealed to the devotee not to get carried away sentimentally and termed it as a coincidence. He further denied any major damage to the property in the fire accident.