Sector 17 Food Court Fire Blasts Two LPG Cylinders

GURUGRAM: Two cooking gas cylinders exploded after a fire broke out at a food court operating from a shop in Sector 17 market on Thursday evening, gutting the outlet and briefly panicking the surrounding market. No one was injured, fire officials said.

The fire department received the call around 5.30pm and sent three tenders from the Sector 29 and Bhim Nagar fire stations. Crews found flames spreading quickly through the shop and focused first on stopping the fire from jumping to adjoining establishments. During the operation, two LPG cylinders kept inside the food court exploded with loud blasts, raising the risk for firefighters and sending people in the market scrambling for cover.

Short circuit suspected, probe open

Firefighters worked nearly two hours before the blaze was fully under control. By then the shop, furniture, cooking equipment and other items inside had been destroyed. A fire department officer said the preliminary reading pointed to a short circuit, but the exact cause and the full extent of damage will be fixed only after a detailed assessment. Officials said the cylinders made the job harder, especially after they blew.

Sector 17 market is a dense retail strip where food outlets often share walls and service lanes with neighbouring shops. A kitchen fire with gas stored on site can turn into a street-level scare within minutes, which is what Thursday's twin blasts did even though the casualty list stayed empty. For other food courts in similar markets, the incident is a reminder that cylinder storage and electrical load in cramped kitchens are not paperwork issues alone. The department has not announced any separate prosecution step yet; that will depend on the post-fire assessment of cause and compliance.

Evening market hours meant more bystanders were in the lanes when the cylinders went off, which is why panic, not injury, was the main public effect. Shopkeepers in adjoining units watched tenders hold the line so the fire did not travel along the shuttered frontage. Once the detailed assessment is filed, questions about how many cylinders were stored inside a single food-court bay and whether wiring had been checked recently will sit with the shop's operators and the inspecting officers. Until then, the official line remains: short circuit suspected, two cylinders exploded, no casualties, shop gutted.

Fire stations at Sector 29 and Bhim Nagar are the usual first responders for this belt, and three tenders for one shop fire shows how seriously crews treat LPG risk once a call mentions a kitchen blaze. The absence of injuries will not end the file; the cause note and any electricity or gas-storage lapses still have to be written up. Market associations often circulate such incidents as informal warnings. Thursday's blast noise ensured this one will be remembered locally even without a casualty headline.