A major fire has erupted at the Ibn Sina Pharmaceuticals factory situated in the Sofipur area of Kaliakair upazila under Gazipur district. Emergency services responded swiftly, with four firefighting units arriving at the scene to battle the flames and contain the blaze.
The incident originated around 4:22 pm on Saturday (17 October) within a ground-floor storage facility of the factory’s six-storey building. Station Officer Raihan of the Kaliakair Fire Service confirmed the development, noting that emergency crews were dispatched almost immediately upon receiving the distress call at 4:24 pm. The first responder team reached the industrial site by 4:34 pm to initiate fire suppression operations.
Due to the sensitive nature of pharmaceutical storage facilities—which frequently house flammable chemical compounds, packaging materials, and active pharmaceutical ingredients—the emergency response was quickly escalated. Two additional firefighting units from the Gazipur Chowrasta Fire Station were deployed and dispatched to reinforce the personnel already on site. The exact cause of the ignition and the total value of property damage remain under investigation.
This emergency follows another severe industrial fire in the region earlier in the week. Operations at a Drug International Limited production plant in the Cherag Ali area of Tongi, Gazipur, were suspended indefinitely following a destructive blaze that broke out on Wednesday morning at approximately 10:15 am.
That incident prompted a massive multi-agency response. Three firefighting teams from Tongi Fire Service initially led the attack, but as the inferno spread, additional units from nearby stations joined the operation. A total of 21 firefighting units fought the blaze for nearly four hours before bringing it under control, while 11 units remained on site until 11:00 pm to achieve complete extinguishment.
In the aftermath of the Tongi incident, factory authorities issued a official notice signed by Factory In-Charge Mohammad Abu Sayeed, confirming the total shutdown of the plant from Thursday morning until further notice. No official timeline has been provided for when operations at the Drug International facility will resume.
Gazipur serves as one of Bangladesh’s primary industrial hubs, hosting a dense concentration of pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, garment factories, and chemical warehouses. The occurrence of two separate factory fires within the district in a single week underscores persistent safety concerns regarding industrial infrastructure, fire prevention protocols, and storage management across the country’s manufacturing sector. Emergency services continue their investigations into both incidents to evaluate compliance with industrial safety standard operating procedures.
