Fire razes 100 shops in Enugu timber market

Fire on Wednesday gutted Uwani Timber Market in Enugu State, destroying no fewer than 100 shops and property valued about N300m by the traders union.Electronic gadgets, woodwork machines, giant power generating sets, doors, timbers, were among the items destroyed. As at Wednesday evening, the cause of the fire, which started at about 1.30am, remained unknown. Affected traders, who spoke to our correspondent, lamented that if the fire-fighting vehicle stationed in the market had contained the inferno, they would have recovered some of their goods and property. They said by the time the Enugu State Fire Service deployed all its fire-fighting vehicles in the scene, about 100 shops had been razed.An eyewitness said the intervention of men of the Enugu State Fire Service helped to mitigate the loss.Some traders attributed the fire to occultic manipulations by some of their colleagues in the market.A trader, who pleaded anonymity, said, "Each time this fire occurs, some people become rich. They use this fire, which occur every year in this market, to make more money."Another trader, Mr. Onyebuchi Obiora, said, "The fire started at 1.30am.It destroyed property worth over N300m. The fire would have spread to other lines if the state fire service did not respond promptly."I suspect it is man-made. Although many people are saying that some people evoked the fire, Im calling on the government to fence the market and give us more security operatives."An official of the fire service, Mr. Joseph Nnaji, disclosed that one of the security men at the market informed him of the fire at about 2am. According to Nnaji, the decision to involve all the fire-fighting vehicles in Enugu followed the intensity of the fire, which he said, would have spread to all the lines in the market if the fire service had not taken the decision.
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