Also seriously gutted by the fire, which was said to have started at the kitchen of the bereaved mother of five children, who is also a food vendor, popularly referred as Ifeanyi’s wife, were about 10 shops, including a boutique, stationery store and an office of a real estate firm.
Also affected were four self-contained one-bedroom flats and a maroon colour Toyota car, marked AB234KSF.
The Nigerian Tribune gathered that the burnt property at number 12 Alakija Street, Jibowu, Lagos, which is a few distance from the corporate headquarters of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the next door neighbour to a branch of the First Bank Nigeria Plc, belonged to the late musical legend of Igbo extraction, Sir Oliver De Coque, who died last year.
It was also learnt that the fairly used Toyota car was said to have been parked by the owner, who is believed to be a tenant in the building and one of the shop owners outside the compound, in front of the one-storey main building, which is not too far from the scene of the fire incident.
The Nigerian Tribune investigation further revealed that the fire outbreak started around 6:15 p.m. and lasted for about two hours before being put out by the combined teams of the Federal Fire Service personnel in conjunction with their counterparts from the Lagos State Fire and emergency services including sympathetic neighbours.
The bereaved housewife - cum -food vendor, whose age was put at between 40 and 42- year-old, was allegedly cooking food meant for her family as their dinner, in company with her children, among whom was the deceased girl , who were all said to be playing cheerfully in the kitchen with one another.
It was further learnt that the lady might have been distracted by the presence of her children inside the kitchen as she allegedly forgot to put out one of her stoves which suddenly exploded into a ball of fire that caught her off guard, just as she tried frantically to rescue her children into safety.
Further checks revealed that no sooner that the fire broke out began that it spread to other shops and residential one bedroom self contained flats, one of which was said to have been stocked with kegs of kerosene in large quantities, which was said to have aggravated the fire outbreak.
The fire outbreak was also said to have caught everyone off guard, as every occupants were all thrown into confusion that led to a brief stamped inside the compound and the tenants began to salvage whatever they could lay their hands upon among their personal property and some articles of trades in their respective shelves in the shops.
It took the combined men of both the Federal Fire Service and their counterparts from the state fire and safety services about one hour thirty minutes before they could put out the fire at the building besides a branch of the First Bank Nigeria Plc at Alakija street, Jibowu Lagos and about three houses away from the corporate headquarters of the West Africa Examination Council.
One of the tenants in the building who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune on the condition of anonymity at the scene of the fire incident said that the truth of the matter was that the buildings within the compound have no space in between them, adding that another the saving grace for some of the victims of the fire incident who were able to salvage some of their goods and other property was that there was no electricity supply from the Power Holding Company of Nigeria plc at the time of the fire outbreak.
According to the source, the lady who lost one of her daughters to the fire incident was cooking in her house and the children were disturbing her and in the process she asked one of the children to go out and suddenly, the fire began. Another problem we faced in the compound is that the house that was meant for one person , about six people will be living there.
It further disclosed that even as at the time of the fire incident that if anyone tried to use fire extinguisher, that it would not work because of the magnitude of the fire.
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