There is a series of fire that is observed at Biomax Fuels Limited in an economic zone at Duvvada on Tuesday evening. This fire continued to rise till Wednesday which caused the fire at 12 crude oil tanks. To control this fire about 100 firefighters and 40 fire tenders are involved. This incident is expected to start the fire at some time in the midnight so no one is aware of that till the fire blows like anything.
By luck, there is no loss of mankind in this incident. Biomax has 18 storage tanks out which 12 are caught fire. These 12 tanks are only used for storing the crude oil which was all burnt because of the crude form of Palm FattyAcid Distillate (PFAD) other tanks are a pure form of PFAD. The employees who work there say that this is caused due to the short circuit in a motor while injecting raw material into it.
In his preliminary report, the Joint Chief Inspector of Factories (JCIF) suspected some of the material that contain methanol and bio-diesel must be leaked from the tank and got ignited by the static charge which caused the fire and explosion. The crude oil was about 3,000KL which is got ignited.
J Mohan Rao, District fire officer said, “The distance between the crude oil tanks and pure oil tanks isn’t much. It would have been much worse if the fire had spread. We managed to contain it by splashing foam and water.”
Police commissioner Amit Garg along with district collector N Yuvaraj and Home Minister N Chinarajappa visited and inspected the case on Tuesday night. This smoke covers the Visakhapatnam SEZ area completely and some parts of Gajuwaka and NAD junction on Wednesday.