Property worth millions of Ghana Cedis and unspecified cash in dollars, were on Monday destroyed, when a 13-bedroom apartment at Ahwiaa-Overseas in the Kwabre-East Municipality of Ashanti, was destroyed by fire.
There were no deaths as none of the occupants was at home during the incident, however, household items such as television sets, fridges, electric fans, passports, and Ghana cards were destroyed by the fire.
The latest incident is the third in one month in the area, with the first occurring on December 7, 2019, the second on December 11.
Mr Agyei Fofie, the Kwabre-East Municipal Fire Officer, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at the scene, said the fire had destroyed properties when fire officers rushed to the scene to douse the fire.
He said the cause of the fire was not immediately known, but promised that GNFS would investigate the incident.
Meanwhile, Mr Anthony Senya, the Kwabre East Municipal Director of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), also speaking to the GNA, at the scene, advised landlords and private developers to engage professional electricians to work on their projects.
He expressed worry at the growing spate of domestic fires in the area though the GNFS has intensified education on fire safety in the municipality.
Meanwhile, Mr Senya has promised that NADMO would support the fire victims with mattresses, pending an investigation to quantify the extent of loss.
The tenants, looking distraught and still counting their losses, said they still could not understand how the house caught fire with no evidence of any inflammable material like gas cooker, neither was there any electricity fault.
Some of them were seen wailing bitterly over the incident, which left them homeless and stranded.
“Our entire property plus millions of cedis and dollars have burnt into ashes. We are astonished about the mysterious outbreak that has left us devastated”, they lamented.
Some of the burnt dollars were seen scattered at the fire scene. – GNA
