14th March, 2016
Kazeem Ugbodaga
At least, 78 houses have been razed by fire in Lagos, Southwest Nigeria in the last 13 days, says the Lagos State Government, just as it warns the public, particularly motorists to desist from the act of indiscriminate storage of the Premium Motor Spirit (Petrol) at inappropriate places.
Director, Lagos State Fire Service, Rasak Fadipe said in the first 13 days of this month alone, 78 emergency fire calls were recorded, noting that, since the advent of the artificial fuel scarcity, some people have devised various illegal means to store the product in the back of their vehicles, under staircases at home or within the premise of their working places.
“All these are factors responsible for the increase in the number of fire outbreaks which leads to mass destruction of lives and property being witnessed recently in the state. The State Government places high premium on safety of lives and properties of the citizenry, therefore the nonchalant attitude of the public to basic safety of lives and property is of great concern to the government as a total number of 355 emergency calls were effectively responded to between January to February of this year,” he said.
The figure, according to Fadipe, was worrisome as the agency had extended its safety enlightenment campaign to all local government areas, hospitals, schools and grassroots in an effort to curb the tide of incident managements associated with fire outbreaks.
According to him, “fuel scarcity is not a yardstick to illegitimate and inappropriate storage of fuel to the detriment of our lives and property(s). We warn the public to avoid using the jerry cans that have been used for petrol to store kerosene and any other inflammable liquids and we further advise motorists not to store petrol in their boots, especially commercial vehicles.
“We call on landlords and tenants to be observant and prevent inappropriate storage of fuel at homes. Filling stations should disallow customers clustering around dispensing pumps in order to avoid scuffle that can spark off outbreak of Fire and avoid dispensing fuel in polythene bags,” he said.