Fire engulfed a slum behind the Ashfoam office at North Kaneshie in Accra on Monday, destroying wooden structures and other several properties.
An eyewitness, Mohammed Ali, told Citi News that the incident, which occurred around 8 am razed down three wooden structures and everything in them.
“The fire started around 8 a.m. to 9 a.m.,” Ali said. “People around came calling that fire had engulfed my elder brother’s structure. So I rushed in to see what was happening. When I got here, I realized the fire had gutted one side of the place. I remembered we had a gas cylinder in there, but in an attempt to go for it, it exploded. I am grateful God saved me. I can’t tell what caused the fire, but before the Fire Service came in, the area boys had started putting off the fire. So they helped us quench the fire.”
Meanwhile, officials of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) who were at the scene to help douse the fire say the government must expedite efforts to provide adequate logistics to deal with such occurrences.
ADO1 Alex King Nartey told Citi News: “The Fire Service is an institution that is currently quite challenged. It is a fight that we can’t fight. Most of our tenders are very, very old. Most of our fire tenders are as old as almost 15 years. So due to their long age, most of them have broken down. We know the government is doing its best, but we want the effort to be hastened because last year, between 25th and 26th December, we recorded 226 fires in these two days, and even with that, some of the appliances hadn’t broken down.
“If we are to record the same or more than the number we had last year, Ghana will be in trouble because there might not be enough fire tenders to attend to all these fires that we would see during the festive season. So we will call on the government, individuals, and corporate organizations to help see to this need.”
