Enugu Fire Service Officer Slumps, Dies While Quenching Fire At Popular Market

A tragic incident occurred at the Auto Parts Market, Coal-Camp, in the Enugu North Local Government Area of Enugu State, resulting in the loss of a fire officer’s life, Naija News reports.

The Director of Enugu State Fire Service, Okwudili Ohaa, explained in a statement made available to journalists that the unfortunate event happened on Wednesday, December 13, 2023.

He noted that the fire officer collapsed and passed away after successfully extinguishing a fire that had erupted in the Enugu Motor Spare Parts Market, commonly known as Tinker.

According to him, the fire service personnel had arrived at the scene around 1:15 am, utilizing three fire trucks to combat the fire that had originated from a shop in the market at midnight.

The head of the fire service did not disclose the cause of the fire.

He, however, narrated that the late fire officer and his team bravely fought the flames before the former lost his life.

Naija News learnt that the fire caused significant damage to merchandise worth millions of naira before it was eventually controlled.

“He was a dedicated officer who loved to lead by example. He was my best fire officer. He was not actually supposed to come to work because he was still recuperating from an illness, but due to his passion for the job, he decided to join the team,” Ohaa mentioned.

“We have been able to quench the outbreak that took us more than two hours. It was a huge one,” he added.

In the meantime, the President of the Enugu Motor Spare Parts Dealers Association, Mike Nome, expressed that had the shop not been secured with a burglar-proof, the security officers present in the market would have successfully extinguished the fire.

“I got a call from one of our security men around midnight that our market was on fire. Our security men promptly rushed to stop it when they noticed the fire. But when they got to the shop, they noticed that it was further locked with burglar proof.

“As they were battling to break into the shop, the fire escalated into the next shop which operated a restaurant and immediately a gas cylinder inside the restaurant exploded, thereby spreading the fire to several shops.

“When the fire went beyond us, I called the state fire service around 1.00 am, and they promptly came in less than 15 minutes to stop the fire from spreading to other areas,” Channels Television quoted Nome saying.