Ballygunge: A fire broke out in the kitchen of an apartment off Ballygunge Circular Road on Friday afternoon.

Police and residents of the building suspect the fire, which gutted the kitchen, was triggered by an LPG leak.

"An LPG cylinder that was placed near the gas oven did not catch fire. Had it caught fire, there would have been an explosion," an officer in the fire and emergency services department said.

Kavita Drolia and her family were having lunch in their fourth-floor flat - in the eight-storeyed Maruti Sadan building at 12 Dover Park, off Ballygunge Circular Road - when the fire broke out around 2.30pm.

"My aunt, wife Kavita, our daughter Tanvi, our son-in-law Utsav (Jain) and a help were at home when this happened. They rushed downstairs the moment they saw the fire. Thankfully, no one was injured or trapped," said Bimal Drolia, the owner of the flat. Tanvi and Utsav live in Bangalore and came to Calcutta on Thursday.

Drolia and some of his relatives who live in the building were at their office in Exide House when they heard about the fire at home.

"We panicked and rushed home. My sister had called father and she was sounding very tensed. I was very scared for my three-month-old child," said Nikunj Drolia, Bimal's nephew, who has a flat on the third floor of the building.

The apartment where the fire broke out was just above Nikunj's.

Maruti Sadan, a few blocks from St Lawrence High School, has over 20 apartments.

After members of Bimal Drolia's family raised an alarm, some drivers and the building's priest, Satyanarayan Sharma, ran upstairs to try and douse the blaze.

"I used three hand-held fire extinguishers to put out the fire. By the time the fire tender reached, the flames were almost doused," said Sharma.

Police said the Drolias get piped LPG from the Greater Calcutta Gas Supply Corporation and also keep an LPG cylinder at home.

"The cylinder has been seized. We will subject it to a forensic test to find out whether there was a leak," an officer of Ballygunge police station said.

A team of forensic experts is likely to visit the apartment on Saturday to collect samples.