Fire destroys used tyres in Kumasi.

 

Some used tyre dealers around Club 600 in Kumasi became the latest victims of fire outbreaks, when their shops got burnt yesterday.

About 10 businessmen and women, who deal in used tyres off the Suame Roundabout-Tafo road, had their shops, burnt to ashes.

It took five fire engines close to an hour to bring the fire under control.

While personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service could not immediately tell the cause of the fire, some of the shop owners attributed it to an owner of a battery charger.

One of the victims, Mr Charles Kwaku , told  the Daily Graphic that the fire started from the shop of the battery charger, which was close to the other shop.

According to him, a resident claimed to have seen smoke from the shop not long after power had been restored to the area.

He explained that the owner of the shop might have left some of the batteries on charge while there was a power outage in the area.

When the Daily Graphic visited the site around 8 am, the victims were seen in groups bemoaning their predicament as they tried to estimate the cost of goods consumed by the fire.

An Assistant Divisional Officer from the Suame Garages Fire Station, Mr Richard Aweso, said the timely response of the GNFS to the emergency call made it possible to contain the fire.

He said in all, five fire engines responded to the emergency call and they took an hour to bring the fire under control.

Mr Aweso could not immediately tell the cause of the fire, but indicated that the combustible nature of the goods in the containers caused the fire to spread quickly to the other containers.

He said besides the used tyres in the shop, 'some of the containers were also filled with gas cylinders and other combustible substances, so they exploded and caused the fire to spread quickly'.

Expressing concern about the menace of fire outbreaks in the country, Mr Aweso said the public seemed to have compromised ongoing fire safety education and, therefore, urged the public to make safety a priority to curb the menace.

' If we appreciate the fact that we get our daily bread from the markets and shops, then, it is important for us to take precautionary measures to prevent fire outbreaks,' he advised.

Modernghana