The Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) has called on the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to undo illegal connections at market places to avert the increasing incidence of fire outbreaks at such places.
Ellis Robertson Okoe, Divisional Officer II, Head of Public Relations, GNFS, said such checks were important because investigations into the fire incidents showed that most fires were caused by electrical faults.
The call followed another fire outbreak at the Kaneshie market on Saturday, after similar incidents were recorded at the Kantanmanto Market in Accra and other markets in the Eastern and Central regions.
He said the markets had witnessed congestion over the years with new power connections, some of which were done illegally and haphazardly and must be checked.
“So until these issues are checked, the fires will continue.”
Mr Okoe said a Fire Service personnel had an electric shock when fighting the Kantamanto Market fire a few days ago, and stressed the need for illegal connections to be checked.
“This disrupted fire fighting for about 30 minutes because we had to call ECG to cut off power before we continued.”
“This made some people to conclude that the Fire Service came to the scene to watch if there was an outbreak before bringing our fire tenders to start fire fighting, which was not the case” he added.
Mr Okoe advised ECG to as a matter of urgency deploy a taskforce to check and undo illegal connections at the markets.
The PRO also called on traders to ensure that they always extinguished naked flames after cooking in the markets.
The Kaneshie Market fire, which occurred in the late hours of Saturday night, engulfed nine fabric shops, which also served as a tailoring shop and a warehouse.
Out of the nine shops, six were totally burnt and the remaining, partially salvaged.
Mr Okoe said the fire was brought under control at midnight and totally extinguished within 30 minutes.
He said the cause of the fire was not immediately known but suspected electrical faults.