Two escape death in Koforidua fire

Two people narrowly escaped death when the sawmill they were sleeping in caught fire at Koforidua in the Eastern Region.

The two escaped through the window of the structure when the fire started this morning within one of the biggest sawmill and furniture shop area in the New Juaben Municipality.

The fire reportedly started at about 4am on Tuesday and completely razed the sawmill and other adjoining furniture shops.

Property worth millions of cedis was destroyed. They include sophisticated sawmill machines, furnished woods among others.

Godwin Oklu, an eyewitness said, ” the fire started at around 4:30am in the machine shop so I immediately moved my family out of the house and then called the fire service but I must say for the first time in my life the fire service came to the scene promptly and I commend them for doing their best in bringing down the fire.”

Although the cause of the fire is not known, he suspects an electrical fault triggered the fire.

Daniel Sunday, a worker at the sawmill and one of the persons in the shop at the time of the fire said “we were asleep when the fire started. We saw smoke all over the place so we had to go out of the building through the window so I jumped and my colleague also did same and went out to call our master. I do not know what caused the fire because we were asleep when it started.”

“We have lost everything here, my clothes, money and all machines in the shop have been destroyed, cutting machines, planing machines, bending machines, sawing machines, grating machines, spraying machines, tools boxes and other carpentry machines are all burnt to ashes,” he added.

ACFO Joshua Nguah, the Eastern Regional Fire Service Commander in an interview with Citi News revealed that no casualty was recorded.

He said his outfit has started investigations into the cause the fire.

“We received a call from the fire master control around 05 :42am so the municipal fire station despatched the first tender to the exact location at Adweso but on reaching there they realized that the whole structure was engulfed in flames so they requested for an additional tender.”

“I moved to the scene with another tender to help stabilize the situation and when we got there I realized the situation was a (Class A fire) so my men and I had to try out possible ways to prevent it from spreading to neighbouring houses because the heat emanating from the wooden structure was very strong so we had to prevent it from spreading,” he added.

The Regional fire service command has since advised the general public to adhere to fire safety regulations.

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By: Neil Nii Amatey Kanarku/citifmonline.com/Ghana