Kumasi: Fire razes down over 70 shops at Racecourse Market

Fire has swept through over 70   shops at Racecourse Market in the Kumasi Metropolis of the Ashanti Region.

The deadly fire according to traders, destroyed goods worth millions of cedis.

Some of the fire victims in an interview with OTEC News reporter Jacob Agyenim Boateng revealed that, the inferno   started in one shop at around 7:00   a-m on Monday December 18, 2023 and later spread to other shops, destroying shops and wares.

They added that, they suspect the fire to have been triggered by one trader who was cooking on a gas cylinder in one of the shop where it all started.

One of the fire victims said she had lost about GHS 100,000 worth of goods to the fire.

“I deal in clothing, and pomades, my wholesale shop i re-stocked just this Friday was ravaged by the fire causing major financial burden to my business”.

Officers of the Ghana National Fire Service GNFS arrived at the scene to contain the fire

Addressing the media after dousing off the fire, the Ashanti Regional Fire Commander, ACFO Henry Giwah revealed that five fire tenders were deployed to the scene immediately after receiving a call about the incident.

The fire commander noted that, there were no fire hydrants at the market making it difficult for them to get access to water

“We had to deploy five fire tenders, because of lack of fire tenders in the facility, we could have stopped the fire immediately if there were water hydrants available at the market”.

ACFO Henry Giwah confirmed that, no casualties were recorded in the inferno.

He added that, the cause of the fire is not immediately known, but his officers have commenced investigations into the fire outbreak.

Source: Ghana/otecfmghana.com/