ABUJA: Deadly Fire, Shops Destroyed?

The fire started around 1am on Sunday.

An early morning fire has destroyed a block of five shops with goods worth thousands of

naira on Sunday in an Abuja, Galadimawa.

The shops include a provision stores, salon, a patent medicine and interior decoration facilities as well as mattresses and rugs mini depots.

A correspondents of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) who witnessed the blaze, said it started at around 1a.m., lasted for an hour and was later put off by fire fighters from the Federal Fire Service.

The fire is suspected to have been caused by electrical faults from one of the shops.

Emeka Obi, an eye-witness, was quoted by NAN as saying that the owner of the mini depot got supplies twice a year.

According to him, the proprietor of the depot recently got supplies for the second half of the year and everything had been destroyed by the fire.

Residents of the village, who commended the Federal Fire Service for its prompt response, called for well known emergency numbers for the public to reach the department.

Paul Ikyado, a resident of the village, said the level of destruction caused by the fire would have been averted to a reasonable level if

the firemen were reached on time.

“When the fire started, we were helpless, we had no emergency number or contact of the fire service.

“The rugs and mattresses caused more fire and the electrical fault

from the ceiling made the fire spread faster.

“The items lost in this fire would have been less if we got the fire men on time,” he said.

Mr. Ikyado called on the government to enhance the services of the fire service by providing short, prompt and popular emergency numbers for citizens’ safety.

Some of the shop owners were not residents of the village and could not be contacted immediately.

Source: NAN