Livelihoods reduced to ashes; loss pegged at Rs 33.50 lakh

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar

Nine establishments were gutted in a massive fire that broke out around 5 am on Monday along the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar–Nashik state highway at Shivur Bungalow in Vaijapur tehsil. While no casualties were reported, nine families lost their sole source of income.

The blaze began in a hotel and garage opposite the government rest house. Workers sleeping inside woke to rapidly spreading flames, fuelled by wooden furniture, refrigerators, food stock, gas cylinders and other combustible material. Hotels, juice centres and shops were engulfed within minutes. A short circuit is suspected, and Shivur police are investigating.

Police constable Subhash Thoke, on patrol, alerted fire brigades from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Vaijapur. Fire tenders reached nearly an hour later and brought the blaze under control, preventing further spread. Workers shifted gas cylinders in time, averting explosions, while a protective wall prevented flames spreading 100–150 feet from reaching a nearby petrol pump. The damaged establishments included two hotels, a pan centre, juice centre, tyre shop, general store, laundry, online service centre, fabrication unit and tea stall, owned by Suresh Tupe, Nandu Jadhav, Kantilal Rajput, Ambadas Nikam, Sanjay Borse, Mayur Nikam, Shrikant Chavan, Ashwin Jadhav and Ganesh Ghogre.

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Loss of Rs 33.50 lakh in nine shops gutted in Shivur Bungalow fire

A panchnama conducted by talathis Jitendra Kalaskar and Arjun Bhosale assessed total losses at Rs 33.50 lakh. Individual losses were recorded as: Ashwin Jadhav Rs 1 lakh; Mayur Nikam Rs 1 lakh; Appasaheb Ghogre Rs 2 lakh; Kantilal Rajput Rs 7 lakh; Raju Raut Rs 1 lakh; Shrikant Chavan Rs 7 lakh; Ambadas Nikam Rs 9 lakh; Sanjay Borse Rs 1.50 lakh; Suresh Tupe Rs 2.50 lakh; and Nandu Jadhav Rs 1.50 lakh.