A major fire in an industrial textile waste dump at Kharwasa on Surat’s outskirts continued to challenge firefighters for hours on Saturday, with more than 15 fire tenders deployed to control flames and remaining hotspots on a nine-bigha plot.
The blaze broke out in large quantities of industrial cloth waste stored on open land. Fire officials estimated that more than 1,000 tonnes of combustible material was lying at the site, making it difficult for crews to reach and extinguish the fire completely.
Firefighting operations continued for more than eight hours on Saturday. The volume and concentration of the waste slowed the response, while teams worked to prevent the fire from spreading and to deal with areas that could reignite.
According to fire officials, the land had been rented to a scrap dealer who had allowed multiple scrap traders to store waste material there. The report did not specify how the fire began or identify any injuries or property damage beyond the waste dump.
Maintaining a steady water supply became a key operational challenge. Fire tenders sourced water from a nearby canal because returning to the Udhna fire station for refilling would have taken about 1.5 hours for each trip, officials said. Using the canal allowed the teams to continue firefighting without the repeated travel time involved in refilling at the station.
The incident highlights the operational difficulty of tackling fires involving densely stored industrial waste on large open plots. Unlike a contained building fire, a waste dump can retain heat beneath layers of combustible material, requiring sustained cooling and monitoring even after visible flames reduce.
Firefighting teams were expected to continue operations until Sunday afternoon, focusing on extinguishing the remaining hotspots and preventing the blaze from reigniting. The supplied report did not state whether municipal or fire authorities had announced any further action regarding the storage arrangement or the site’s safety compliance.
