Tragedy struck when an early morning inferno, on Thursday, destroyed goods and furniture worth several millions of Naira in two popular furniture stores in Osogbo, the Osun State capital.
The popular furniture store, Art Deco, within a two-storey building and the adjoining two-storey building, where furniture items and materials are sold, were both destroyed by the fire.
Mr Ibrahim Adekunle, spokesman, Osun State Fire Service, said that they received a distress call about the fire about 2:30 a.m. and promptly rushed to the place.
Adekunle said that fire fighters battled the fire from the time they got to the scene about 2:30 a.m. until noon before they were able to contain the inferno.
“We were called about 2.30a.m that fire was razing Art Deco Complex and when we got there, we observed that the fire had started for long, maybe about 12 a.m.
“I believe it was when they could not put the fire under control that they called us and we had to battle the fire and put it under control about 12 noon.
“Due to the nature of the materials in the buildings (flammable materials), the fire was massive and it took us time to stop it from spreading to other buildings.
“We have, however, been able to put the fire under control, but materials in the two buildings had been seriously destroyed, while the building next to Art Deco is now at the verge of collapse due to the effect of the fire.” he said.
The spokesman of the fire service said that fortunately, no life was lost in the incident and commiserated with the owners of the buildings and stores over the incident.
He said that investigations were still ongoing to unravel the cause of the fire.
