Fire Guts Warehouse In Kumasi

Asokwa, a suburb of Kumasi in the Ashanti Region last Thursday recorded its first disaster of the year 2008 when fire gutted a warehouse belonging to Palace Services, a plastic and chairs hiring company.

The fire which started around 11:30 am on that fateful day destroyed property running into billions of cedis.

Fortunately, the fire which lasted for hours, before personnel of the Fire Service brought it under control, did not claim lives nor cause injuries to people who were close by.

The owner of Palace Services, Kwabena Asare told DAILY GUIDE that he had a call at the office that his warehouse was in flames.
He said when he hastily rushed to the scene, the fire was still blazing.

Mr Asare noted that the value of items destroyed was estimated at over ¢1.6 billion.

He mentioned that the destroyed items included both plastic and metal chairs, and tarpaulins.

Mr Asare suspected the burning of toilet papers at the back of the warehouse to be the cause of the fire.

He explained that authorities of Asokwa-Amakom Junior High School had authorized the burning of toilet papers close to the warehouse consistently.

According to him, his countless complaints to the school authorities to relocate the burning of the toilet papers had yielded no positive results.

Mr Asare said the headmaster after the school went on recess for the Christmas holidays commercialized the toilet facility.

He explained that the care-taker continued burning the toilet papers close to the warehouse.

Mr Asare said before he left for work on the morning of the fire outbreak, the care-taker was burning the toilet papers, noting that when he tried to explain the consequence of the burning, the caretaker rudely ignored him.

Mr Asare who was visibly shaken by the unfortunate development, accused the Fire Service of performing below professional expectations.

He said apart from unnecessarily delaying in responding to the distressed call, personnel of the Fire Service stopped fighting the fire mid-way, claiming that they had run out of water.

Mr Asare was of the view that had the fire fighters acted promptly and made adequate arrangement for water, he could have saved some of the items which got burnt.
From Morgan Owusu, Kumasi