Fire has swept through over 70 shops at Racecourse Market in the Kumasi Metropolis of the Ashanti Region.
The deadly fire according to traders, destroyed goods worth millions of cedis.
Some of the fire victims in an interview with Kumasi based OTECFM revealed that the started in one shop at around 7:00 a.m on Monday and later spread to other shops, destroying shops and wares.
They added that, they suspect the fire to have been triggered by one trader who was cooking on a gas cylinder in one of the shop where it all started
One of the fire victims said she had lost about GH¢100,000 worth of goods to the fire.
“I deal in clothing, and pomades, my wholesale shop I re-stocked just this Friday, was ravaged by the fire causing major financial burden to my business.”
Officers of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) arrived at the scene to contain the fire.
Addressing the media after dousing off the fire, the Ashanti Regional Fire Commander, Assistant Chief Fire Officer (ACFO) Henry Giwah revealed that five fire tenders were deployed to the scene immediately after receiving a call about the incident.
The fire commander noted that, there were no fire hydrants at the market making it difficult for them to get access to water
“We had to deploy five fire tenders, because of lack of fire tenders in the facility, we could have stopped the fire immediate
ly if there were water hydrants available at the market,” he said.
ACFO Henry Giwah confirmed that, no casualties were recorded in the inferno.
He added that, the cause of the fire was not immediately known, but his officers have commenced investigations into the fire outbreak.
Source: Ghanaian Times
