At least 45 cars damaged in fire at BMW service centre

At least 45 cars including several BMWs were charred when a BMW service centre-cum-godown in Turbhe MIDC, Navi Mumbai, was gutted in a fire in the early hours of Tuesday.

According to a senior fire officer from the MIDC, the fire broke out at around 5.25am in the four-storey building (ground-plus-three with a basement) and went on for more than seven hours before the officials managed to bring it under control. The fire was doused at around 1pm. There were no injuries in the incident. The exact loss of property is still being assessed.

A fire officer from MIDC said, “The security officials of the building spotted the fire on the first floor and informed us. Ten fire tenders from Vashi, Koparkhairane, Turbhe and MIDC were sent to douse the fire. Around 32 cars were totally damaged. A majority of them were BMWs. Other high-end cars numbering between 13 and 18 were also partially damaged.”

A fire officer said that the internal firefighting system of the building was not on auto mode when the accident occurred and its battery was also down. Had that been on auto mode with a running battery, the fire would not have been so massive, he said. BMW officials will conduct an audit to ascertain the extent of damage. “The exact reason behind the accident has not been understood yet. An electric short circuit is suspected to have caused it. We are not sure how many of these cars were new or used. We are still assessing the damage,” said a fire official.

Representatives from the service centre were unavailable for comment.