Fire burns shops in Ibadan

Disaster struck on Christmas Day in Ibadan, Oyo
State capital, as more than 200 shops were burnt in
a major plank market at Alaro area of Sango.
According to eyewitnesses, the fire started at
around 3.00pm.
However, our correspondent, who visited the scene
of the incident at 7.30pm, observed as men of the
state fire service tried to put out the fire, which was
still raging.
Some of them expressed fear that if they failed to
put out the fire, it could extend to other shops
overnight.
It was learnt that the fire was fuelled by the
stockpile of planks and heaps of sawdust in the
market. But as of the time of filing this report, the
cause of the fire had yet to be established.
Some of the marketers estimated the loss to the
fire incident to be over N250m.
Our correspondent learnt that one fire service truck
was deployed to the market and observed as some
of the traders, who feared that the fire could extend
to other areas overnight, bought water to support
the efforts of the fire service.
One of the traders, who gave his name as Adegoke,
expressed anger at the fire service and described
their efforts as “lame and inadequate”.
He said he left his shop around 2.30pm after
attending to a customer who urgently needed some
goods. He added that he was surprised when he
received a call 30 minutes later that the market was
on fire.
He said, “Since today (Friday) is Christmas, I
decided to observe it at home like many of our
members. But a customer called me on my mobile
telephone while I was at home.
“He said he urgently needed to buy some planks, so
I went to the shop. After the transaction, I closed
the shop and went back home. I was still on the
way when I got a call that some shops in the
market had caught fire.”
He said he lost goods worth N3.5m.
“I am a medium-sized trader, but there are traders
here with planks and equipment worth more than
N5m in their shops,” he said. Apart from the
planks, several sawing machines and other logging
equipment were lost in the fire.
Reacting to the incident, a trader, Afolabi, said
instead of bringing more fire service trucks to the
scene, only one was sent, which had to leave the
scene three times to get more water.
He said, “Each time the vehicle left to refill water,
we lost more shops because the fire would gain
more ground. Don’t forget that this is the time of
the year when there are more fire incidents. More
fire service vehicles are needed to forestall possible
overnight fire here. As you can see, we now pay to
bring water tanker to help the fire service men.”
Meanwhile, no fewer than 79 people died in 1,638
different fire incidents in Lagos State between
January and November, 2015, the state Fire Service
has said.
According to a statement by the spokesman for the
service, Mr. Amodu Shakiru, on Friday in Lagos, the
service also rescued 99 victims in the incidents
recorded within that period.
It stated that property estimated at N16.38bn were
lost in the incidents.
According to the statement, properties estimated at
N98.28 bn were saved during the fire operations in
the period under review.