Fire breaks out in Bengaluru's Varthur lake

BENGALURU: A year after a fire broke out at

Bellandur lake

, Bengaluru's largest and most polluted waterbody, residents of

Thubrahalli

reported clouds of smoke billowing over

Varthur lake

, downstream of Bellandur, on Sunday afternoon.


"At around 2:30, I noticed orange smoke, hovering some 20 feet over the wetlands of the lake near the Thubrahalli side", said

Jagadish Reddy

, a lake activist and lake warden, adding that the last time the lake area caught fire was in March 2017.

The fire force which he contacted soon after, reached the site but said they were unable to put out the fire as they didn’t have the necessary equipment.

“We are waiting for rafts and boats”, said a tender who was at the site.

Since the fire broke out in the middle of the

grassy wetland

, it is unlikely that it was caused by burning barrage, said the local villagers.

“Someone must have taken their boat across to cut grass for fodder and dropped a lit beedi in the grass, and this might have caused the fire” said a villager.

Almost 4 hours after the fire broke out, it seemed to have died down by itself.