A fire outbreak has destroyed 30 shops at the Lafia Modern Market in Nasarawa State, causing losses worth millions of naira.
The fire started on Thursday night around 9:30 pm and continued until Friday morning despite efforts to extinguish.
Traders seaking to the PUNCH expressed deep frustration over the delay in the arrival of the Nasarawa State Fire Service and the challenges they faced in controlling the fire due to heaps of refuse in the marketplace.
One of the affected traders, Muse Abdullahi, said, “The fire began at about 9:30 pm, and nobody knows what caused it. The shops were built with wood, which made the fire spread quickly. My father’s three shops were among those affected, and 40 new sewing machines that arrived on Thursday morning were destroyed. Other shops that burned included shoe and clothing stores.”
Abdullahi criticized the late response of the firefighters, saying, “We waited over an hour for them. By the time they arrived, most of the damage was already done. Even after they came, it took until Friday morning, around 9:15 am, to finally put out the fire.”
An eyewitness blamed the heaps of refuse in the market for worsening the fire. “The fire spread to the dumping site and then escalated to the tailor and shoe shops,” he said. The eyewitness called on the government to provide a proper waste disposal area to prevent similar incidents in the future.
The Director of Fire Service, Ombogus Joshua, confirmed the incident, saying, “We received a distress call around 9:30 pm on Thursday and immediately deployed our team. Unfortunately, the fire destroyed properties worth millions of naira before it was brought under control.”
He urged the public to handle electrical appliances with care and avoid indiscriminate dumping of refuse near their shops, especially during the dry Harmattan season.
Traders have appealed to the state government to improve market infrastructure and ensure timely responses to emergencies to prevent future disasters.
