25 shops burnt to ashes as fire swept through Alabar-French line in Kumasi Central Market

Fire has swept through over 25 shops at Alabar-French-line in the Kumasi Metropolis of the Ashanti Region, destroying goods.

The inferno according to eyewitnesses started in one shop at around 7:00am on Sunday, December 10, 2023 and later spread to other shops, destroying shops and wares.

Some witnesses in an interview with this reporter on Sunday said they suspect the fire to have been triggered by an electrical fault in the shop where it all started.

They revealed that items amounting to thousands of Ghana cedis have been destroyed by the inferno.

They added that it took the intervention of officials from the Ghana National Fire Service to prevent the situation from escalating further.

Some affected victims recounted their losses: '' I heard about the fire and rushed to the market to try and salvage some of my wares but I couldn't pick anything from my shop because the fire had already destroyed everything," a shop owner stated.

Another said “I have restocked my shop with wares worth thousands of cedis. I bought some with my own money and others on credit, and now I have lost them all"

The Deputy Ashanti Regional Fire Commander DO1 Rashid Missaw said they have commenced investigations into the fire incident.

He noted that the actual cause of the fire is not immediately known.

According to DO1 Rashid Missaw, it took five fire tenders and dozens of fire officials to douse the fire.

He added that their officials had no access to the epicentre of the fire making it difficult for them to stop it within time.