By Laraba MUREY
Fire disasters are gradually becoming regular occurrence in the Federal Capital Territory, with millions of naira lost to the incessant fire outbreaks yearly.
An FCT Fire statistics show that over N1.7billion was lost to fire outbreaks between 2017 and 2020 alone, while the service attended and responded to 1,844 fire and rescue calls within the three-year period.
With rise in infrastructural development, one will expect that preventive measures and mechanisms will be put in place to check fire threats and outbreaks, especially in public facilities.
The case of FCT is one fire to many, as there is hardly a month that passes without reports of a market, house, office, mall or supermarket building gutted by fire.
More often than not these fire triggers are attributed to human negligence where users fail to pay attention to electrical safety such as leaving wires bare, using leaked cooking gas cylinders or adulterated kerosene products that could cause combustion.
Despite the campaigns by disaster managers on preventive measures, such sensitization campaigns seem not sufficient to support the people in the event of fire outbreaks.
From the cooking gas cylinder explosion in Gwagwalada where three children were injured, to the Tipper garage market incident at Gwarinpa, the Dei-Dei, New Market fire incident where a section of the market was razed down by fire, to the inferno at the account section of the ECOWAS building at Asokoro, it has been one unfortunate incident after the other.
Only recently, fire ravaged the Next Cash N Carry, a departmental store located in the Jahi area of the FCT, destroying valuables worth billions of naira. It was reported that the inferno was caused by an electrical surge which started from the administrative section of the supermarket. Investigation has been launched to ascertain the actual cause of fire.
Recall that in July 2021, shoppers and staff of Ebeano Supermarket at Lokogoma district scampered for safety as fire engulfed the flammable section of the store. The fire was said to have been burning for over 24 hours as firefighters tried to quench the blazing fire the store burnt to ashes.
A viral CCTV footage later showed where a young girl of about 9 years old was seen setting fire on some items close to some highly flammable items shortly before the mall went up in flames.
Again in November a massive explosion rocked Kubwa Village Market. The fire outbreak was reportedly caused by adulterated kerosene, which claimed five lives and destroyed several shops, with goods worth millions of Naira.
The FCT Administration later demolished about 100 illegal shops around the market.
Chairman of the FCT Ministerial Taskforce on City Sanitation, Mr Ikharo Attah, who led the exercise, stressed that the demolition was initiated to correct contraventions constituting environmental nuisances in the market.
Painfully still within the month of November about three weeks after the fire outbreak at Kubwa Market, the popular Nyanya Market on Abuja-Keffi expressway was also gutted in flames, destroying valuable goods and properties.
Metro spoke with some residents of the FCT over the incessant fire outbreaks and the respondents ask that proper action should be taken by relevant authorities as well as people living in FCT, to avert future occurrences.
A shop owner at Bannex complex at Wuse 2, Nkechi Nwachukwu, said mechanisms needs to be put in place to ensure that these fire crises in Abuja is reduced to the barest minimum.
“You know our people don’t understand how to manage these kinds of properties, so I will advise that more sensitization should be made to create awareness in the FCT. Also, people in government should put laws in place to hold players in the construction industry liable for any oversight that leads to fire outbreaks or for failure to provide fire preventable measures in buildings.”
Another business owner at the Wuse market, Musa Ibrahim is worried about the rippling economic effect of incessant fire outbreaks in the FCT. He said unless the trend is checked, more youths will continue to lose their sources of livelihood and may be force to resort to crime.
Foreseeing more fire outbreaks, the Director General of FCT Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, Alhaji Abbas Idriss, in a television interview had advised FCT residents to equip their homes, offices, business places and cars with basic fire defense equipment to curtail fire outbreaks.
While noting that the annual harmattan in the FCT had begun with the Kubwa market incident, he asked that markets should be segmented to separate shoppers and traders away from inflammable and combustible items.
The DG also recently called for the review of the 1963 Federal Fire Service Act stating that the Act no longer serves the current realities of fire disasters in order to protect the public.
Idriss, in a statement asked, “Is there any law that empowers the firemen to vet a building from the beginning of the construction to the end? They are supposed to be there from inception. In the FCT, emergency agencies rely on the Urban and Regional Planning Act to carry out enforcement”.
While calling on residents to dial the toll-free number 112 in event of any strange fire, he disclosed that at least an average of 5 fires are recorded daily in the FCT, noting that this was a high rate.
Metro in a phone interview in July with the then acting Director, FCT Fire Service, Engr. Sani Saidu, reacting to the fire in Prince Ebeano Supermarket regretted that if the management had provided safety gadgets and fire extinguishers, the incident would have been contained on time.
“It is just unfortunate that the owners spent money in building the supermarket and did not put the necessary fire safety gadgets like the exit ways. If there was exit ways this unfortunate incident would have been minimized.
“The place ought to have two elevated water reservoirs of not less than 50,000 litres. I also observed that there is no automatic water sprinkler because if there was, water sprinkler would have helped immediately if the fire came on or reduced drastically,” he said.
Also a member of the House of Representatives, representing Mbaitoli/Ikeduru Federal Constituency of Imo state, Honorable Henry Nwawuba, in a motion titled “Curbing the Menace of Fire Outbreaks in Nigeria”, moved that Federal Fire Service should ensure that all public building structures and markets within the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and the country at large have functional fire alerting systems to save lives and properties.
The House also called on the FCT minister, Mohammed Bello, to ensure compliance with the Federal Fire Service Act by ensuring that every building and market within FCT install a fire alerting system in their various structures.
The minister also is not left out in curtail the continuous fire within the FCT. For instance, while examining the level of damage at the Next Cash and Carry Inferno, the minister directed the Development Control Department to conduct vulnerability tests on supermarkets and buildings in the territory in order to tackle the incessant fire outbreaks.
Going forward, all stakeholders must draw up contingency plans across the FCT such as fire exits, fire extinguishers, including firefighters in planning buildings structures or supervision in order to erase repeated fire incidents in the territory.
