Fire on Tuesday gutted two
multi-storey buildings at different locations in the ever-busy commercial city
centre of Lagos Island destroying goods and property worth millions of naira.
The six-storey building
situated at Oluwole Market, adjacent to Mandillas Building, and another
three-storey building located at Dosumu Street, both in Lagos Island, were both
affected by the inferno.
While the fire at the
three-storey building on Dosumu street was successfully put off, fire
servicemen at the time of filing this report were still battling to extinguish
the fire which is raging at the six-storey building at Martins Street.
A combined team of
servicemen from Lagos Fire Service, Federal Fire Service, Julius Berger, UBA
and Union Bank were at the scene battling to extinguish the fire.
Dr Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu,
Director-General, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), said at the
scene that emergency that officials were able to localise the fire and stopped
it from spreading to other buildings.
“We received call earlier
this morning that there is a fire incident that involves two multistorey
buildings at Martins Street and Dosumu Street in Lagos.
“Immediately we activated
our emergency response plan and other stakeholders in managing emergency moved
to the scene.
“We are able to locate and
localise the fire but the major challenge we are having is access to the major
source of the fire; secondly, we discovered that they stored highly inflammable
materials in the building.
“The way the building is
positioned is adjacent and interlocked to the centre area, but we make use of
combined team method to localise the fire which spread from one shop to the
other but we are trying to put it off now,” Oke-Osanyintolu said.
He appealed to Lagos
citizens, especially the traders at Lagos Island markets, not to panic as there
was no casualty involved in the incident.
He, however, pleaded with
traders to stop putting generators and petrol inside their shops to avoid
similar accidents in the area.
Chief (Mrs) Folashade Ojo,
Iyaloja of Lagos, who also visited the scene, called for regular public power
supply to prevent indiscriminate use of generators causing fire outbreaks.
Also speaking to newsmen,
Director-General, Lagos State Safety Commission, Mr Lanre Mojola, attributed
crowd control as a major challenge at scenes of fire and other accidents.
Mojola said that Lagos
State emergency team and other stakeholders were working hard in ensuring that
the fire did not affect any other building in the area.
Olanrewaju Elegushi,
Special Adviser to Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Lagos Central Business District,
said the state would soon provide fire hydrants in the area to enable the
servicemen have access to water.
Elegushi sympathised with
the affected traders and urged them to insure their property to enable them
sustain their businesses.
The South West Commanding
Officer, Federal Fire Service, Mr Ganiu Olayiwola, said there was a need for
hydrant in Lagos markets, saying that insufficient access to water affected
putting off the fire.
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