A fire outbreak destroyed several shops in a storey building located beside the Ikotun Roundabout area of Lagos State, with electronics and other valuables worth millions of naira reportedly lost.
Naija News learnt that the affected shops were largely occupied by electronics dealers, whose goods were completely razed by the inferno.
Confirming the incident on Thursday, January 1, the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service said it received a distress call at about 12:22 a.m., while its personnel arrived at the scene roughly 10 minutes later, at about 12:32 a.m.
“It is a fire involving a storey building shopping complex consisting of 24 shops of varying sizes. The affected shops and their contents were severely damaged by fire,” the Controller General of the agency, Margret Adeseye, disclosed in a statement made available to newsmen on Thursday.
Adeseye explained that firefighters deployed specialised equipment and vehicles from different stations to contain the blaze and prevent it from spreading to adjoining structures.
“One class A foam branch from Fire Eagle C12 (LFS 89LA), Enigbo, supplemented with water from FFL 008 (LFS 69LA), Isolo, and FFL 001 (LFS 62LA), Ijegun, was deployed to combat the fire,” she said.
She added that operatives of the Nigeria Police Force from the Ikotun Division were also on the ground to maintain order and ensure safety while firefighting operations were ongoing.
The fire service said the inferno was eventually brought under control and completely extinguished, with no casualty recorded.
According to Adeseye, preliminary investigations suggested that the fire was caused by an electrical surge resulting from negligence.
Naija News reports that the Ikotun incident occurred barely 72 hours after another fire outbreak had razed a section of Arena Market in the Bolade area of Oshodi.
It also came at a time when emergency responders were still battling the aftermath of a fire that gutted the Great Nigeria Insurance Plaza on Wednesday, December 24.
