A fire that broke out early on Saturday morning in Oja Tuntun, the largest market in Ile-Ife, Osun State, damaged commodities valued at millions of naira and damaged no fewer than seventeen establishments.
Sunday Special learned that there had been three fire incidents in this market between July 2019 and December 2020, resulting in the destruction of numerous stores and merchandise.
The Osun State Fire Service spokeswoman, Adekunle Ibrahim, told our correspondent that firefighters responded to a distress call around 12:30 am from a resident who lived close to the market, even though the reason of the most recent incident’s market fire was still unknown.
Ibrahim revealed that a group from the fire department of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, joined the Osun firefighters and stopped the fire from becoming worse. When the firefighters got at the scene, the intense fire had already destroyed a building housing sixteen businesses and a container inside the market.
According to him, at approximately 00:30 on Saturday, November 11, 2023, the Olulere New Market in Oja Tuntun in Ile-Ife experienced a fire. This information was reported to the Ile-Ife Zonal Fire Station.
With help from the OAU Fire Unit, our men extinguished the fire when it was still well-lit. Although a block with 16 stores and one container, or a total of 17 establishments, was affected, the property rescued was valued at over N500 million.
Similarly, as firefighters fought to stop the fire from spreading to other areas of the market, Kehinde Adeleke, the Public Relations Officer of the Osun Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, stated that command personnel were on duty to prevent looting.
