Fire kills six, destroys over N400m property in Bauchi

The Bauchi State Fire Service has said six persons lost their lives while 217 people were saved in various fire incidents across the 20 local government areas of the state.

The agency’s spokesman, Abubakar Bala, gave this report of fire incidents that occurred between January to December 2018.

He said property worth N427,530,000 were destroyed within the period while the agency was able avert property worth N1,035,250,000 from 357 calls the service received. He gave the affected areas to include residential houses, workshops, shops, hotels, petrol stations, vehicles, and markets among others.

Abubabakar said the cause of the fires in 2018 were electrical faults, overloading of electrical appliances and uncontrolled bush burning. He said, wrong electrical wirings, negligence of handling electrical appliances, misuse of gas cooker, among others triggered the fires.

He, therefore, urged the residents to “always employ the services of qualified professionals to carry out their electrical connections. They should keep matches away from children to prevent them from playing with it, which could lead to fire.

“I advise them to always purchase quality electrical wires for all their wirings, they should stop buying these substandard wires which can easily cause fire.”

Bala added that incidences of attack on their personnel has greatly reduced as the residents of the state are becoming more aware of the challenges the service is facing which is responsible for their ineffectiveness to respond to distress calls.