The Lagos State Fire Service on Thursday raised the alarm over the frequent fire outbreaks in the State and attributed same to high level of unconsciousness in the handling of fire and other flammable materials as major causes.
The Fire Service said it recorded over 119 fire incidents across the State from the beginning of January 2019 till date.
The Acting Director, Lagos State Fire Service, Rasaki Musibau who made this known in his office at Alausa, Ikeja lamented that valuables worth millions and preventable lives were been lost daily to avoidable fire outbreaks.
The fire chief recalled that the directorate received nothing less than 17 fire emergencies weekly, which he said called for concern as a responsible and responsive government that placed safety of its citizenry at premium.
According to him, 11 rescue calls and eight false calls were received accordingly.
The fire boss narrated that emergency activities of the Directorate commenced Thursday around 9:06am with a call to a burning car opposite Ikeja Shopping Mall and which was efficiently put out at exactly 9:18am.
“Another call was also received at our Sarri Iganmu Fire Station for a fire outbreak at Sun Flag Textile opposite First Bank, Iganmu, the team with the support of Ilupeju fire station arrived the scene at 9:12 am and was able to quell the Fire in due time. The Ilupeju Fire Station received another call from UAC building CMS, Lagos Island and responded the safety exercise was complemented by other emergency responders in the state.
“The fire was alleged to have started from the air conditioned unit of one of the offices in the tenth floor of the twelve story building. The officers were able to confine the raging inferno to the office and thus prevented it from spreading to other offices and floors. Sanity was later restored to the applause of onlookers,” he said.
The Director further revealed that shortly afterwards Alausa Fire Station also received an alert around 11.12am to a residential building at 23, Alhaji Ashafa Street, Magodo and was able to effectively curtailed the fire from other buildings.
Rasaki said that if not for the act of professionalism and tactics employed by the Firefighters at scenes of the incident across the State, the so call small fires would have escalated and become a disaster. The causes of the fires as at the time of filing this report are yet to be ascertained.
“Fire outbreaks in the State have become a perennial problem, with many reported cases which in no doubt pose serious threat to national economy and further leaves enormous material damage, injury to persons and disruption of economic and social life.
“Some of the fire cases are mostly caused by negligence on the part of those who use it, hence the need to prioritise the management and prevention of fire in our environment in order to avoid destruction of lives and properties” Rasaki said.
He noted that the fire officers as first responder to emergency and incident management had been empowered and equipped to tackle any form of natural and man-made incident across the State and further appeal to Lagosians to get familiar with the emergency toll free numbers 767/112.