Firefighters battled a fire in Accra’s Makola Shopping Mall on Friday night, saving roughly 2,000 shops and makeshift constructions.
“We were able to save about 2000 shops and the Electricity Company of Ghana’s substation near the Mall from burning,” said Kofi Forson, deputy director of operations for the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), in an interview.
The fire, however, burned down about 200 businesses and makeshift buildings on the first and second floors of the Mall’s block, opposite the Ghana Law School.
It took four hours to put out the fire, which was alleged to have begun shortly after 2300 hours.
Forson stated that fire officials arrived at the area a few minutes after receiving the call reporting the breakout, but they encountered accessibility issues due to the stores being shut and some temporary buildings blocking the passageways.
He added that the fire became strong due to the abundance of flammable materials in the shops, such as plastics, cosmetics, and wigs.
A total of 70 firefighters were dispatched to bring the fire under control.
Meanwhile, the Accra Metropolitan chief executive, Elizabeth Kwatsoe Sackey, who visited the scene to assess the level of damage, recommended business owners to take fire education seriously and apply preventive measures. Market fires are a common occurrence in Ghana.
However, there are no particular statistics on the number of fires that have destroyed Ghanaian marketplaces because the figures are classified as commercial fires by the GNFS.
In Ghana last year, 986 commercial fires were reported.
