Hyderabad: A careless smoker triggered a major fire that took the fire brigade four hours to douse on Thursday evening. Tons of tree branches, that were chopped ahead of the Ganesh immersion last year and dumped at a site adjacent Indira Park along the Lower Tank Bund Road, caught fire from the lighted butt of a cigarette. The fire started at about 5.30 pm and spread across the dumping yard. At about the same time, a minor fire was reported inside KBR Park, opposite TRS Bhavan.
 
A fire brigade douser rushed to the spot at about 8.30 pm and put off the fire. This is the second incident at the park in recent times. The cause of the fire is under investigation. The fire department lines keep ringing throughout the day as minor fire incidents occurred at the High Court, BRK Bhavan and opposite HICC. These fires were said to have been caused when waste paper and dry leaves caught fire, officials said.
 
About the fire behind Indira Park, an official with the GHMC urban biodiversity wing said that overgrown branches of trees along the main roads of the Ganesh procession were chopped before the festival in September last year.

About 30 truckloads of branches were dumped at the temporary yard near Indira Park, and were not shifted to the permanent yard. The branches had dried up over the months.
Mr K Vijay Kumar, assistant district fire officer, said, “The fire department received a call at abotu 5.30 pm about the fire. Three vehicles from the Secunderabad, Musheerabad and Secretariat fire stations rushed to the spot, supported by four water tankers from the GHMC. It took up to 10 pm to bring the fire under control.”
 
He said a careless smoker was the reason that the dried logs caught fire. It was a major task as we had to segregate the dry branches from the waste. “The fire would have destroyed Indira Park as well,” he said.