Fire Razes Warehouse - Firemen Went Through Hell

The efforts of about 30 fire fighters and policemen to extinguish blazing flames at Adabraka yesterday were hindered by poor city planning, resulting in the complete destruction of a warehouse, an Internet cafe, a cargo truck and a hairdressing salon.

With thick smoke engulfing the neighbourhood and the skyline, hundreds of residents looked on helplessly as the firemen fought the inferno for about two hours before bringing the fire under control at one end of the warehouse.
But the real challenge was to confront the fire fighters from the other end of the warehouse facing Odawna, where the fire had started from, again with no access for the fire tenders to manoeuvre.

The men, therefore, had to improvise by pulling the water hose through a cluster of houses and garages to reach the fire.
By 5.00 p.m., with the structures still exuding smoke, property worth millions of cedis had been totally destroyed in the warehouse, the nearby Internet cafe and the hairdressing salon.
The fire also razed through a wooden structure on top of the warehouse, consuming it completely.
The owners of the warehouse, 2000 Company Limited, said they could not retrieve anything from the fire.
The items in the warehouse and the Internet cafe included bags of rice, baby diapers, insecticides, cooking oil, computers, fridges, travelling bags and cooking utensils.
Explosions could be heard several metres away from the fire and insecticide spraying cans could be seen flying in the smoke, forcing residents nearby to run for their lives.
Residents whom the Daily Graphic interviewed said they had seen sparks of fire emanating from the warehouse about 11.30 a.m. and alerted the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) to that.
According to the residents, they decided to help in pulling out items from the burning warehouse but they were stopped by the owners, who thought the residents would steal those items.
Asked about the cause of the fire, the District Fire Officer in charge of the Industrial Area, Mr P. K. Donkor, said it started when a welding machine caught fire which extended to other areas.
He said about 12:04 p.m. the service was informed that a building had caught fire at Adabraka.
He added that on arriving at the scene where a large crowd had gathered, the Fire Service did its best to put out the fire but as of 2:30 p.m. it was still burning with full force, though the GNFS had already used water in four tenders to fight it.
The men ran out of water in the process and had to go searching for some in order to put out the fire, Mr Donkor said.
Officer G.T. Adams of the GNFS appealed to the Ghana Water Company to open all water hydrants in the city.
 
He said the service needed more water for its operations, saying that lack of it made it impossible to save lives and property.
Ms Lydia Amehereyre, whose Internet cafe was adjacent to the warehouse, said she could not save anything from the fire.
 
Source:Graphic Ghana