Asian Hospital Fire, Sambhajinagar: 58 Patients Including 9 Newborns Evacuated After NICU AC Unit Fire

The fire was reported at around 2.20 am at Asian Hospital on Jalna Road, near Akashwani Chowk. As per the reports in The Times of India and The Indian Express, the staff noticed thick smoke coming from the NICU on the first floor, raised the alarm, and alerted the fire brigade and the police.

At the time, 58 patients were admitted on the first floor, where the NICU is located. Below is the breakdown reported by the police:

• 9 newborns in the NICU
• 36 patients in the general ward
• 13 patients in the special rooms

Five fire tenders reached the hospital. Laxman Kolhe, in-charge of the CIDCO fire brigade, told The Times of India that the heavy smoke made the firefighting difficult, but the blaze was brought under control in under half an hour. Other reports put it at 10 to 15 minutes. The fire was contained before it spread to other parts of the hospital, though the smoke reached beyond the NICU.

The hospital's director, Dr Shoeb Hashmi, said that the smoke came from an AC unit inside the NICU and that the staff moved the newborns out as a precaution, along with the patients in the neighbouring general ward. The exact cause of the fire and the extent of the damage are yet to be confirmed by the authorities.

It is worth noting that the hospital staff had already evacuated the patients by the time the fire tenders arrived, as per the fire brigade in-charge. Nearly 30 ambulances were called in to shift the patients, and personnel from the Jawahar Nagar police station and other police units joined the operation.

The nine newborns were shifted to the Government Medical College and Hospital (Ghati), MGM Hospital and Sanjeevani Hospital for further treatment, with the consent of their families. Relatives rushed to the hospital after hearing the news, and the police cordoned off the area while the evacuation was underway.

This is the second fire inside a newborn care unit in Maharashtra in less than two weeks. On 24 August 2026, a fire broke out at around 3.30 am in the Special Newborn Care Unit (SNCU) of the Amravati District Women's Hospital, reportedly after a blast in a ventilator on the third floor. Three newborns died, and six critically affected newborns were moved to a super speciality hospital. Thirty-nine newborns were admitted across the unit's three sections at the time. The National Human Rights Commission has since issued a notice to the Maharashtra Chief Secretary and asked for a report.

The Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar incident ended without a casualty. Even so, the similarities between the two are hard to miss. Both fires started in the early hours of the morning, both started inside the newborn unit, and both point to an electrical or equipment fault as the starting point.

A newborn unit is the hardest part of a hospital to evacuate. The patients cannot walk out, and each one has to be disconnected from a warmer, a ventilator, or a monitor and carried to safety by a staff member. As such, the time between the first smoke and the first alarm decides everything in a NICU. In Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, the staff noticed the smoke early and moved fast. That is the reason why the night ended well.

The electrical side deserves the same attention. A critical care unit runs 24 hours a day, and the air-conditioning, the incubators, the warmers, the ventilators and the monitors all draw power through the same circuits. In many hospitals, that load has grown over the years without the wiring, the distribution boards, or the earthing being checked with instruments. Please note that a short circuit is only the suspected cause in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, and a ventilator fault is the reported cause in Amravati; neither has been confirmed by an inquiry so far.

In Maharashtra, the Maharashtra Fire Prevention and Life Safety Measures Act, 2006 requires hospitals and other buildings that the Act covers to have their fire and life safety audit conducted by a Licensed Fire and Life Safety Auditor, as per Section 45A. Whether a particular hospital falls under the mandate depends on its height and occupancy. Licensed auditors like PowerTech hold that licence (MF&ES/F&LSA/0029), and the fire safety audit we conduct at a hospital checks the detection system, the fire doors around the critical care units, the escape routes, and the electrical installation together, because a fire in a NICU tests all of them at once.

Below are the five checks that every hospital can run this month, without waiting for an audit:

• Detection inside the unit: Smoke detectors inside the NICU and the ICU, connected to the fire alarm panel and tested, with no zone switched off at the panel.
• The circuits behind the equipment: The AC units, warmers, and ventilators in the critical care areas, and the distribution boards that feed them, checked under load with a thermal imager for hot spots and loose or overloaded connections. This is electrical safety audit and thermography audit work, not a visual round.
• Smoke separation: The fire doors and the compartment walls around the unit, so that smoke stays out long enough to move every patient.
• The night-shift plan: A written evacuation plan for patients who cannot move on their own, rehearsed by the night staff, with the receiving hospitals and the ambulance arrangements agreed in advance.
• The audit record: The date of the last fire safety audit and the last electrical safety inspection, and whether every finding in them was closed.

None of these checks needs a new system to be installed. They need someone to look, measure, and record what they find, and then close the gaps.

PowerTech has conducted fire, electrical, and energy audits since 2014. Our offices are in Pune, Mumbai and Nashik. The firm holds Fire & Life Safety Auditor licence MF&ES/F&LSA/0029. Our audit team also includes a Chartered Electrical Safety Engineer, authorised by the Government of Maharashtra under Regulation 6 of the CEA (MSES) Regulations 2023.

Every item in the checks above is inspected physically by our engineers during the audit, and the electrical side is measured under load rather than judged by eye.

We offer the following audit and compliance services:

• Fire Safety Audit
• Electrical Safety Audit
• Energy Audit
• Thermography Audit
• Earth Pit Testing
• Power Quality Audit & Harmonic Study
• Energy Saving Contracts on BOT Model

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Tell us what made you read this news till the end. Whether you are concerned about securing your property or ensuring the safety of people in your facility, PowerTech is a government-approved auditor with 12+ years of experience auditing residential, commercial, and industrial facilities. We reply within one working day, and after a short call about the site, you receive a scope of work written for the hospital, with commercial terms and no obligation. Contact our team of licensed auditors today to book a fire and electrical safety audit of your hospital, starting with the critical care units.

• The Times of India, 4 September 2026: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/aurangabad/fire-breaks-out-at-maharashtras-asian-hospital-over-50-patients-including-9-infants-rescued/articleshow/133752974.cms
• The Times of India, 5 September 2026: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/aurangabad/fire-breaks-out-at-nicu-of-private-hospital-in-sambhajinagar-9-infants-50-other-patients-evacuated/articleshow/133777800.cms
• The Indian Express, 4 September 2026: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/fire-asian-hospital-nicu-maharashtra-chantrapati-sambhajinagar-patients-newborns-rescued-10862937/
• ABP Live Marathi, 4 September 2026: https://marathi.abplive.com/crime/chhatrapati-sambhajinagar-fire-accident-in-asian-hospital-at-midnight-58-patients-including-9-little-ones-rescued-narrowly-escape-nicu-marathi-news-1437890
• The Free Press Journal, 4 September 2026: https://freepressjournal.in/pune/video-9-infants-safely-evacuated-after-fire-breaks-out-at-asian-hospital-in-chhatrapati-sambhajinagar
• India TV News on the Amravati fire, 24 August 2026: https://www.indiatvnews.com/maharashtra/3-newborns-dead-6-undergoing-treatment-after-fire-at-nicu-of-amravati-district-women-s-hospital-2026-08-24-1052246
• The Free Press Journal on the NHRC notice, August 2026: https://www.freepressjournal.in/mumbai/nhrc-takes-suo-motu-cognisance-of-amravati-hospital-fire-that-killed-three-newborns