A midnight fire outbreak has destroyed buildings and shops worth millions of naira early hours on Friday in Warri metropolis.
The incident which started at about 1 am and lasted till 3:20 am and which occurred at Ekurode Urhobo in Warri, was attributed to an electric spark from a building, and resulted to a wild fire.
Though no life was lost, narrating her ordeal, a resident of the area involved in the incident only identified as Miss Grace said, “I woke up to ease myself and I smelt something like a wire or fuse burning, so checked around the house to see if any of our sockets were burning but I found none in our house”.
Grace who said she is a post graduate student continued that “As I was easing myself, the smell became stronger, I opened the door and walked outside, behold what I saw was smoke and fire emanating from one of the shops close to our house”.
“All my certificates, from primary school to university are gone,” she lamented.
One Mrs Rose Debekeme whose shop’s worth millions of naira that was also torched by the inferno recounted her experience this way: “I was in my house sleeping when the fire incident occurred. Somebody called me and said, ‘Madam Rose fire has destroyed everything in your Shop’”.
“I started shedding tears. All my goods and the monies I kept in the safe are gone,” she grieved, appealing to public spirited individuals and the government for help.
However, the Chairman of the community Mr Samuel Edema together with Hon Vincent Okudolor gave their own account of efforts made to put the fire under control.
“We had a distress call from our people about the fire outbreak, so I called the State Fire Service and Shell Fire Service to come to our aid while Hon Vincent Okudolor quickly drove down to Shell yard Ogunu,” Mr Edema said.
“It took the intervention of SPDC to put out the fire, though they came an hour after calling because they are third party,” he concluded.