Man loses wife, brother-in-law, maid to fire incident

A family of five was yesterday thrown into mourning following a fire incident that engulfed their house at midnight in Ikeja area of Lagos State. The fire, according to eyewitness, broke out at about 2:00a.m., which killed the victim’s wife, maid and brother-in-law.

Sympathisers and family members were seen yesterday trooping in their large numbers to console the man, who is yet to come over the shock of the incident. Eyewitnesses said the maid and the wife’s brother died as a result of the heavy fumes from the fire, while the wife’s efforts to rescue some important document from the apartment having earlier escaped the inferno, led to her death as she could not come out safely from the building, which has a single pathway.
 
The cause of the fire on the one-storey building situated at No.1, Alade Close, Ikeja, could not be ascertained as at press time though witnesses said it started from the sitting room in the building.

The Lagos State government had on Monday said properties worth N12.8 billion were lost to fire tragedies, while properties worth N76.9 billion were saved from destruction in 980 fire calls between May 2017 and April 2018. The government also said no fewer than 84 people were lost to the incidents.

The Commissioner for Special Duties and Inter-governmental Relations, Mr. Oluseye Oladejo, stated this at the 2018 Ministerial Press Briefing, adding that out of 1,282 emergency calls received during the period under review, 980 were fire calls.