Power surge blamed for fire on Lagos police barracks

An early Tuesday morning fire which destroyed nine rooms of a building in the Olosan Police Barracks located in the Mushin area of Lagos State has been attributed to a power surge.

A PUNCH Metro correspondent who visited the scene of the incident learnt that the fire started at about 6:49 a.m. in a room on the second floor of a two-storey building before spreading to other rooms.

The impact of the fire left several properties destroyed as the entire rooms on the affected floor were razed while the building and others not affected by the fire showed signs of distress.

Similarly, the roof of the building was destroyed, with some parts of the roof falling while other parts succumbing to the impact of the fire.

Also, our correspondent observed that some scavengers took advantage of the incident to cart metal and wooden scraps from the affected building.

When our correspondent tried to get the reactions of some occupants of the building, they declined comments, stressing that the barracks authority had cautioned them against speaking about the incident.

Meanwhile, an eyewitness who spoke with our correspondent on the condition of anonymity stressed that the fire might have been caused by a power surge.

The eyewitness noted that there was no causality recorded stressing that the intervention of the men of the fire service salvaged the situation.

The eyewitness said, “The fire did not start at midnight, it started at about 6:49 a.m. today. I think it was caused by an electrical surge because it started from one of the rooms and spread to other rooms.

“The fire was very big, but nobody was injured or killed by the fire. It had razed the second floor when the fire service came and quelled the blaze.”

When contacted, the spokesperson for the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Services, Shakiru Amodu, disclosed that nine rooms were razed by the inferno.

He added that the cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained and that the agency was working with the police to unravel the cause.

Amodu said, “Yes, we were at the scene. The fire started overnight but the intervention of our men helped to curtail it from spreading to other blocks. One of the blocks, a two-storey building, was affected. The fire destroyed nine rooms on the second floor of the affected building.

“We are yet to ascertain the cause of the fire. We are working with the police to unravel the cause. We will give further updates as soon as we can ascertain the cause.”

In his reaction, the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, stressed that there was no causality in the incident.

He noted that an investigation was ongoing to unravel the cause of the fire.

“No casualties. Investigation ongoing,” Hundeyin said in a terse response to our correspondent’s enquiries.

PUNCH Metro reported on January 1 that a twin fire incident on the Lagos Island and Okokomaiko areas of Lagos State destroyed several properties including houses, a section of a police station, a diesel-laden truck, and a generator house belonging to a hotel.

According to the Director of the LSFRS, Magaret Adeseye, the first fire incident gutted a three-storey building in the popular Docemo market on the Lagos Island area of the state, leaving the top floor area of the building destroyed.

The second fire occurred in the Okokomaiko area and was caused by negligence on the part of a tanker driver who had gone to deliver petroleum products to a network mast.