Fire razes warehouses in Lagos

Three warehouses were yesterday gutted by fire in Kirikiri area
of Lagos State, destroying goods worth millions of naira.
The fire, which started at about 3p.m. at Johnson Street, Off
Cardoso Road in Kirikiri town, razed the warehouses storing
imported bicycles, motorcycles and vehicle tubes and tyres.
The warehouses belong to Henry and Henry Limited.
When Daily Sun visited the scene of the incident, the
warehouses were still up in flames. The owners of the
warehouses, who only managed to salvage few of the goods
as soon as the fire started, watched helplessly while the
storehouses went down.
Though the warehouses were fenced and isolated, it was
gathered that fire fighters from a nearby petroleum farm
rushed to the scene to douse the inferno. Their efforts were
successful as they prevented the fire from spreading to the
surrounding buildings.
A resident at the quarters, Casmir Ofonagoro told our
correspondent that the fire started with high intensity, which
made it difficult for the workers to salvage the destroyed
items. He attributed the quick spread of the inferno to the
highly inflammable nature of the goods stored in the
warehouses.
“I just left my house not quite long when my wife called me
that there was a fire outbreak in our area. I quickly returned
to personally witness where exactly the fire was burning.
Everything happened so fast that even if the government fire
service men were alerted, they would have arrived here late. I
never knew that these buildings were used as warehouses,” he
said.
As at the time of filing this report, the cause of the fire had
yet to be ascertained. Some of the workers could not speak
with the press as they worked arduously to protect the
salvaged goods from being stolen by some hoodlums among
the crowd who thronged the scene.
In about two hours of the raging fire, some parts of the
buildings had started cracking and collapsing.