No fewer than 14 buildings were gutted by fire on Tuesday in Dosumu Market in the Lagos Island area of Lagos State.
The Lagos Territorial Coordinator of the National Emergency Management Authority, Ibrahim Farinloye, who confirmed the incident in a telephone conversation with our correspondent on Tuesday, said four buildings out of the 14 had collapsed as of press time.
Farinloye, who blamed the cause of the fire on the careless refuelling of a generator in the penthouse of one of the buildings, decried the difficulty faced by emergency responders in accessing some of the affected areas.
“As of now, four buildings have collapsed while 14 buildings were affected by the fire. We had challenges with water, but we were able to sort that out by contacting the Nigeria Port Authority.
“The fire started from the Penthouse of one of the buildings where a man was carelessly refuelling a generator before it ignited the fire and escalated to other buildings. There were many generators in the building that further compounded the escalation.”
PUNCH Metro gathered that several goods worth millions of naira were also destroyed in the fire that started around 10 am on Tuesday.
The fire was said to have started in a three-story building on Jankara Street before spreading to other adjoining buildings in the market.
Giving an update on the incident, the Director of the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service, Margaret Adeseye, corroborated NEMA on the affected buildings.
She disclosed further that the storage of fuel products in the penthouse of the building where the fire started, coupled with chemical materials stored in the building, escalated the fire.
Adeseye said, “The Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service has successfully contained a major fire incident affecting 14 buildings, with two structures fully collapsed and two partially collapsed. The cause was traced to refuelling a generator among others, with fuel storage in kegs at the penthouse of a three-building complex housing a printing shop with chemical contents.”
She added that the fire had been contained while damping was ongoing as of the time of this report.
Adeseye also warned members of the public to be careful while handling combustible materials to prevent future fire occurrences.
“Swift firefighting operations by the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service, which has now moved to damp down strategy, mitigating all threats and ensuring public safety; enumeration of shops and goods lost are ongoing, and preventive measures will be enforced.
“All the state’s emergency responders, including that of the national and private partners, are collaborating at the scene. The public is urged to handle combustible materials with caution to prevent future incidents,” Adeseye stated.
In what appears to be a monthly incident, PUNCH Metro reported on March 21 that NEMA had blamed the escalation of a fire incident that engulfed four buildings in the Idumota area of the Lagos Island Local Government Area of the state on the lack of a water source.
According to Farinloye, emergency responders were faced with the challenge of water supply that could have aided the effective quelling of the fire, preventing the escalation and the level of damage caused by the fire.
He stressed that there was no water source within proximity of the fire incident, thereby forcing the fire vehicles to go in turn to get water.
PUNCH Metro reported in January that no fewer than 6,700 traders lost their goods to a fire that gutted the popular Mandilas building on Broad Street, Lagos Island Local Government Area of the state.
Also, 450 shops, 30 offices, two hotels, and five restaurants were destroyed by the impact of the fire, which affected the 14-storey building.
The fire reportedly started from the first floor of the building and spread to the seventh floor, caused by careless welding during the installation of a power generator on the second floor of the Mandilas building in Lagos, leading to the fire incident.
Similarly, on February 4, PUNCH Metro reported that a plank market located at the Awori bus stop in the Abule Egba area of the state caught fire, destroying goods and properties worth millions of naira.
According to the LSFRS, five minibuses, two pickup vans, and two cars were lost to the fire.