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

The staircase leading to the basement of the four+two-storey building is still hot after more than 48 hours of hell in Hyderabad’s Nampally area. Blackened with soot and smelling of acrid smoke, the staircase was still blocked by burnt furniture, halting rescue efforts and leading to the deaths of five people, including two children. Outside, there are blurry photographs of the dead and candles left over from the local people’s vigil.

The building bears evidence of the frantic and desperate attempts of various civilian agencies to rescue the trapped people. On the other side of the building, an excavator was used to cut a hole in the wall and pour water to extinguish the fire and facilitate a possible rescue. A furniture store employee in the adjacent building said, “The glass was thick and did not break easily, which is why the firefighting operation took so long. They then drilled a hole in the side of the ramp.”

The hole drilled in the wall for the rescue effort was a repeat of the disaster in the Gulzar Houz inferno on May 18, 2025, when a similar hole had to be drilled to fight the fire in the Modi family’s kitchen. And just like the Gulzar Houz fire, fire trucks could not reach the immediate vicinity of the fire. While the single entrance to the Modi family’s house halted rescue efforts, enclosed staircases and two-storey furniture led to disastrous consequences in the Nampally fire.

A police official guarding the building said, “There was no way firefighters could enter the building. The stairs were not wide enough for more than two people to pass.” In the fire that broke out near Gulzar Houz, the fire brigade had to use the neighboring building and demolish the wall in the passage before reaching the outer wall of the house.

A series of satellite images taken from April 2010 to October 2025 show how the area changed as the furniture store expanded to the main road. A photo taken on the street shows how shop owners use every bit of public space to display furniture on the road, and numerous transport vehicles are parked outside. It’s a pattern that repeats itself on the street, one of Hyderabad’s busiest furniture hubs.