Hyderabad: In a first, the Telangana fire dept has roped in a gaming company to recreate an accident scene using visual effects (VFX). Dilsukhnagar-based Cine Games has been selected to develop an animated video of the May 18 inferno that killed 17 members of jeweller Prahlad Modi’s family living in a three-storey property in Gulzar Houz.“The video will analyse the topography of the area and recreate the sequence of events that unfolded on that day. It will help the fire dept assess the incident in detail,” said a senior executive of Cine Games, after an inspection of the gutted structure on Wednesday. “We have taken the dimensions of the property. Now, we’ll put this together with the details shared by the authorities and create both photos and videos — in 2D and 3D – using VFX,” he added.Post inspection, he reiterated that the narrow entrance, staircase and lack of setback (minimum distance that a building must be placed from a street, boundary) collectively led to the accident turning fatal.“The width of the main entrance is 1.7 metres, while the breadth of each staircase is 0.95 metres. This made it difficult for residents to escape,” he said, adding, “The video will show how the fire started on the ground floor and spread to the upper floors. It will give insights into how much time people took to reach the upper floors and terrace in order to escape, and also show in detail the rescue operations that followed,” the executive said.The short video of two to three minutes will take about five days to be ready.Apart from probing the Gulzar Houz accident, the video will also be used as a module to train fire personnel and prepare them for future calamities. It will be put up on the fire dept’s website as an advisory for the public.“We have never recreated fire accident scenes in the past. But now, since we are upgrading and using modern technology even in firefighting — like robots etc — we thought it would be a good idea to use tech for this as well. The video will be a good learning module for our staff too,” said a senior official from the fire dept.