Some traders at the Race Course market in Kumasi have been left traumatized after fire destroyed their shops.
The Monday morning incident had ruined the livelihoods of over fifty traders who deal in different wares.
“I sell plastic bowls, and by the time I got here, everything has been turned into ashes. I could not even recover a single item. We are already struggling to make ends meet, and now this? I don’t even know what to do,” a distressed trader, Agnes Acheampong said in tears.
An observation by the fire fighters pointed to the dry nature of the weather and combustible items in some of the shops as the reason for the quick spread of the fire.
“We had a distressed call around 7.30am and got here in less than 10 minutes, but the fire had already spread. We just had to ensure that it doesn’t spread further.
“In dry season like this, substances get dried up, and the ignition temperature becomes very low. So, the small temperature applied starts a big fire. We should try to control our ignition sources to avoid undesired fires,” Ashanti regional Fire Commander ACFO Henry Giwah advised.
Though investigations to establish the cause of the fire underway, some affected traders who witnessed the incident said it was a gas cylinder explosion.
This is the second market fire in Kumasi in 8 days.
The French line market fire, which occurred on December 10, swept through over one hundred shops