At least four offices in the Lagos State Ministry of Commerce and Industry in Alausa, Ikeja, were gutted by fire on Saturday, while property worth millions of naira was reportedly destroyed.
The fire incident was the second in 24 hours in the Alausa area of the state.
A fire on Friday razed a mechanic village a few meters away from the Alausa Secretariat, where the commerce ministry is located.
The fire that razed the mechanic village on Ashabi Cole Street, Alausa, Ikeja, burnt 25 vehicles.
Based on what was gathered, the fire that gutted the ministry of commerce building started about 1pm.
Although the cause of the fire had yet to be ascertained as at the time of filing this report, sources in the ministry said the fire started from one of the offices in the four-storey building before spreading to other parts of the building.
One of the sources said, “Nobody knew about the fire until a passerby, who had gone to do something in the area, raised the alarm.
“A few of us were on the premises and we quickly rushed to the place, where we saw thick smoke billowing from some offices in the building.
“We called the state emergency lines and soon after two tankers from the fire services arrived at the scene.
“The firefighters were able to put out the fire eventually, but not before some offices had been razed. About four offices were affected, and they are saying that property worth millions was destroyed.”
A senior official of the fire service said the outfit responded immediately it received the distress calls.
“We responded with 10, 000 litres of water and put out the fire before it could do much damage,” he also stated.