By Ira Deshpande
A major disaster was narrowly avoided on Monday when a fuel tanker caught fire on the busy Pune-Solapur Road. The incident happened early morning near Shewalwadi Chowk in Hadapsar. The vehicle was carrying around 20,000 litres of fuel which had around 15,000 litres of diesel and 5,000 litres of petrol.
The call came to the city’s fire control room at around 9:20 in the morning. Fire tenders from Hadapsar, Kalepadal, BT Kawade Road, and Kharadi stations. They arrived soon after and found that the traffic had halted and police were already on site.
Once there, firefighters realised the situation was critical. If the blaze had managed to reach the fuel compartments, the result could have been catastrophic. They sprayed water from all four sides of the tanker to keep flames from spreading into the petrol and diesel tanks. A cooling operation followed to make sure no reignition occurred.
According to Chief Fire Officer Devendra Potphode, the prompt response and alert action of the team prevented this from being an extremely serious accident.
Reports say that the driver panicked when the fire broke out in the cabin. Fortunately, he jumped out right afterwards and escaped unharmed. The tanker had started from Loni and was en route to Pune.
Officials have named part of the team: officers Pramod Sonawane and Nilesh Lonkar led the operation, with drivers Narayan Jagtap and Raju Shaikh and a fire-crew with members including Baba Chavan, Chandrakant Navale, Ramdas Lad, and Avinash Dhakne.
The incident serves as a reminder of how quickly a fuel transport emergency can escalate, especially on busy urban roads. Authorities say regular checks, ready fire services and vigilant traffic control remain vital to avoid such close calls in the coming future.