Why not use treated water to fight fire?

The Karnataka State Fire and Emergency Services in the City can ideally use treated water to douse major fires. But due to lack of communication between the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board and the Fire department, it is potable Cauvery water that is used whenever there are fire mishaps.

The BWSSB has four tertiary treatment plants — one of them on Mysore Road -Vrishabhavathi Valley, with a capacity to treat 60 million litres of waste water. But at present, since the plant is not fed with enough waste water, only 15 million litres of waste water is treated. Of this, five million litres of water is sold to private companies and establishments such as Bengaluru International Airport. The remaining 10 million litres is let down the drain along the Vrishabhavathi river course. The Yelahanka tertiary treatment plant has a capacity to treat 10 million litres, but only four million litres are treated at the plant as it is not fed with enough waste water. However, the output from smaller capacity tertiary treatment plants at Lalbagh and Cubbon Park, both with a capacity to treat 1.5 million litres each, is being utilised effectively to water the gardens.  

According to a BWSSB official, the fire department is aware of the water treatment facilities. Their fire engines having tanker facility used 20,000 litres of water from the Cubbon Park treatment plant in January. However, this is not a regular practice, he said.

According to B K Hamppagol, former deputy director (technical), Fire and Eme­rgency Services, who retired recently, any kind of water is fine for dousing fire. “We can use even gutter water to douse fire as long as we can stop it from spreading. We normally fill water from the nearest filling station as directed by BWSSB. We sometimes draw water from the nearest lake to ensure there is no delay in putting out the fire. If the BWSSB informs us about the availability of treated water, we are ready to use even that,” he said.

D C Chengappa, Director, Karnataka State Fire and Emergency Services, says irrespective of the water used, the main intention is to reduce the temperature generated by the fire and douse the blaze.

“There are 39 vehicles having a capacity to carry 4,500 litres of water and nine bigger vehicles having a capacity to carry 16,000 litres of water. We have no problem in using any kind of water for emergency services,” he said.

Hamppagol said there had been no official communication from the BWSSB about treated water.

“If the water board can create a facility to fill our fire engine tankers at their tertiary treatment plants, we can use only treated water,” he said.

According to BWSSB engineer-in-chief T Venkataraju, since the water used for dousing fire is sometimes used on humans too, it is advisable that only clean water is used while fighting blazes.

“Tertiary treated water is good enough. But during emergency, we need to provide water from the nearest location and we cannot think about treated water or potable water. The fire department has never approached us for treated water. There is no problem in supplying such water,” he said.