Tollygunge: A fire broke out in the top-floor apartment of a four-storey building in Tollygunge, a stone's throw from Indrapuri Studio, on Friday night.

The residents - Dilip Kumar Poddar, his wife and son - were outside and the flat was locked when the fire started a little after 8pm. The neighbours alerted the fire department after spotting the balcony in flames.

Three fire tenders arrived around 8.30pm and the flames were doused an hour later.

"The balcony was burning. The rooms were engulfed in thick smoke. We had to break the glass windows of the balcony," said a firefighter.

"We arrived at the flat in the nick of time and removed an LPG cylinder. Otherwise, there might have been a bigger disaster."

Preliminary findings suggest a short-circuit triggered the fire near a wooden rack attached to a wall of the balcony. With piles of paper stacked on the shelves, the fire spread quickly, the officer said.

The firefigters had initially suspected that the flames had originated from the air-conditioner. But it was switched off.

"The balcony is gutted. The rooms were unscathed barring some curtains and clothes. Dark patches have formed on the walls because of the smoke," a relative of the Poddars said.

"The flames were so thick that I did not dare use extinguishers. I alerted residents, who called the fire brigade," said Sk Kalimuddin, the caretaker of the residential complex, Tolly Park, which has two four-storey towers.

The electricity connection to the affected tower had to be snapped during the firefighting. "The caretaker told us that there was a fire two floors above. We came down and saw flames in the balcony. It took the firefighters some time to climb the stairs," said a resident.

A nationalised bank has a branch on the third floor of the other tower.

An officer of the fire department said the complex did not have any firefighting equipment, apart from a couple of extinguishers.

A wall separates an open ground besides Indrapuri Studio from Tolly Park. The area, a minute's walk from Tollygunge Metro station, falls under ward 94 of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation.