Furniture store fire tragedy in Nampally mirrors last year’s disaster near Gulzar Houz

The staircase leading to the cellar in the four+two-storied building is still warm after more than 48 hours of an inferno sweeping through it in the Nampally area of Hyderabad. Darkened by soot and smelling of acrid smoke, the staircase is still blocked by burnt furniture that stalled rescue efforts and led to the death of five persons including two children. Outside, there are blurred photographs of the dead persons with candles that are remnants of a vigil by the local people.

The building bears evidence of frantic and desperate attempts to rescue the trapped people by various civic agencies. On the other side of the building, an earthmover was used to drill a hole in the wall to pour water to put out the fire and a possible rescue. “The glass was thick and did not break easily, that’s why the fire-fighting operation took so long. Then they drilled the hole near the ramp,” said a furniture-store worker in the adjacent building.

The hole in the wall for a rescue effort was a replay of the disaster in the Gulzar Houz inferno where a similar hole had to be drilled into the kitchen of the Modi family to fight the blaze on May 18, 2025. And just like the Gulzar Houz fire, the fire engines were not able to reach the immediate vicinity of the fire. While the single entrance of the Modi family home stalled rescue efforts, in the Nampally blaze, the blocked staircase and two-floors of furniture led to the disastrous outcome.

“There was no way the firemen could enter the building. The steps are not wide enough for more than two persons to pass,” said a police official guarding the building. In the fire near Gulzar Houz, fire department had to use a neighbouring building, break down a wall in the passageway before they could reach the outer wall of the house.

A series of satellite images from April 2010 till October 2025 show how the locality changed with the furniture store reaching right up to the main road. A street grab shows how the shop owners used every bit of public space to display the furniture on the road with a number of transport vehicles parked outside. A pattern that repeats itself in the street that is one of the busiest furniture hubs of Hyderabad.