Bengaluru lake on fire for 3 hours as firemen look on helplessly

BENGALURU: Fire broke out on Sunday afternoon in

Varthur Lake

, downstream of

Bellandur Lake

where blazes are a recurring phenomenon. As flames leapt out of the water body and smoked billowed, panic spread in the area.

“Around 2:30pm, I noticed smoke some 20-foot over the wetlands of the lake on Thubarahalli side. Smoke and flames could be seen at three places in the lake,” said Jagadish Reddy, a lake activist and warden. The fire died down around 5.30pm.

The last time a fire broke out in

Varthur

Lake was in May 2017, when miscreants torched garbage at an inlet near Thubarahalli village.

The fire brigade, alerted by Jagadish, rushed three fire tenders to the site, but there was no way the vehicles could access the spots which were deep inside. “We are waiting for rafts and boats as we cannot douse the flames without them,” said a fireman, standing helplessly on the banks of the lake.

The crackling sound of burning grass could be heard hundreds of metres away, while smoke drifted towards the apartment complexes near the lake.

Locals said it was unlikely that the fire, which broke out in the middle of the grassy wetland, was caused due to burning of garbage. “The fire was probably caused by a beedi, dropped by a farmer who may have rowed across the cut grass for fodder,” they said.

“The fire brigade wasn’t of any helpful, as they hadn’t come prepared. Our request to call in either the civil defence or the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) fell on deaf ears. As a result, several acres of flora and fauna have been destroyed. This is the mating season for many birds and snakes and this is a huge loss to the ecosystem,” Reddy lamented.

However, an official from the

Bangalore Development Authority

(BDA), the custodian of the lake, played down the incident. “This was just a small incident. The fire seems to have been caused by some people who dropped a lit cigarette,” he said.

Flak that preceded the fire

On December 6, 2018, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) castigated the state government and civic agencies for their “colossal neglect” of Bellandur and Varthur lakes, ordering the Karnataka government to set aside Rs 500 crore in an escrow account towards cleaning them. It also directed the

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike

to pay Rs 50 crore penalty to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) as environmental compensation.

Burning lakes

Bellandur: May 2015, August 2016, February 2017, May 2017 and January 2018. In addition, the BBMP says that there have been 16 small fires near Bellandur Lake between November 8 and January 3

Varthur: May 2017