Monrovia – Despite its limited manpower and logistics capacity, the Liberia National Fire Service (LNFS) Tuesday saved the suburb of Sinkor from what would have an inferno when ERA Supermarket, adjacent the Aminata Fueling Station and Peace Café on 16th Street, was gutted by fire.
Report by Henry Karmo – [email protected]
It took the fire department five minutes, according to one senior officer of the LNFS, to get to the blazing supermarket.
Firefighters of the LNFS immediately put off the fire, thereby preventing it from spreading to the fueling station which would have been disastrous.
Eyewitnesses on the scene said they saw smoke emitting from the generator room and later in one of the warehouses adjacent the Aminata Station. But the LNFS says they are still investigating the cause of the fire.
Alex Gibson, Deputy Director for Operations at the Liberia National Fire Service told FrontPage Africa that preliminary investigation shows that the cause of the fire was electrical.
“We did receive a call and arrived on the fire scene in five minutes,” he said.
“We are doing a preliminary investigation. We met the fire in a room where we saw goods such as tissue.
They lost lot of properties; two apartments fell victim to the fire the generator room is intact and the cause of the fire, we believe, that it is partly electrical.”
He cautioned Liberians to always make use of the emergency number for the LNFS whenever there is an incident involving fire.
“We want to say thanks to those who made the call. We received a call from one EPS agent, one Matt Cooper. People should say thanks to firefighters and all well-meaning Liberians who came to help here today,” he said.
All attempts to talk to the management of ERA did not materialize.