Fire guts Seventh Day church building in Lagos

The entrance of the church

Fire fighters on Tuesday prevented the Seventh Day Adventists Church on Benson Street, Maryland, Lagos from burning down after a building housing the electricity generating plant of the church caught fire.

It was learnt that the fire which started around 3pm razed down the generator building.

Pandemonium broke out in the area as flames engulfed the generator house. Residents of the area told PUNCH Metro that the fire lasted for over 30 minutes.

The residents said the intervention of the firefighters prevented the flames from spreading to the main church building.

A policeman in the area, who spoke to our correspondent on the condition of anonymity, said the fire was due to the negligence.

“We learnt that the generator supplying electricity to the church building was on. However, at the same time, they were refueling the generator. How can you do that? The whole thing caught fire and the firefighters came around 30 minutes after to quell the fire,” he said.

A vulcaniser on the street, who identified himself simply as Sunday, said the incident caused panic on the street.

“What happened was that some hours ago, a vehicle came to supply diesel to the church. As they were loading fuel into the tank, the fuel touched the silencer of the generator and fire sparked .It took some minutes before the firefighters arrived at the scene,” he said.

The church authorities declined speaking to our correspondent.

Some security men at the gate of the church prevented our correspondent from meeting with any of the church officials.

The security men said there was a standing instruction that no journalist should be allowed to enter as the church authorities were not interested in commenting on the incident. The security men also said they were not allowed to speak on the fire.

Our correspondent, however, caught a glimpse of the shambles, while a man that appeared to be one of the church officials was busy taking pictures of the burnt remains of the building.

The Director of the state fire service, Rasak Fadipe, confirmed the incident.

PUNCH