The Federal Capital Territory Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at about 12.28 am on Thursday, received a distress call from the National Emergency Call Centre, 112 notifying of a fire outbreak at Karmo market located in a community in Abuja Municipal Area Council of the FCT.
A statement by the Director General of FEMA, Alhaji Abbas Idriss, stated that the Agency immediately activated the FCT Fire Service, Federal Fire Service and NEMA to join it’s response team.
“On noticing that the fire was spreading, FEMA requested additional fire stations from the Mutual Fire Service institutions.
“With the support of the military, the Nigeria Police Force DSS, FRSC and other security agency’s combined efforts, the fire was brought under control at about 4.41am,” the statement said.
Alhaji Idriss commended the search and rescue team of FEMA,shop owners, security agencies, community leaders and the people of Karmo for efforts to salvage some goods and properties from the inferno.
The DG informed that there were no casualties during the incident, but goods worth millions of naira were destroyed.
According to Idriss, the loss and accessors team of FEMA, NEMA, Traders Associations, Area Council Local Emergency Management Committee as well as security agencies were on the field to get an estimated value of losses incurred by the traders.
He further stated that FEMA was working with all relevant agencies to ascertain the proximate cause of the fire and would forward a full report to the administration after the investigations.
He commiserated with traders affected by the inferno on behalf of the Minister of the FCT and his counterpart, the Minister of State.
The FEMA boss reiterated the call for the segmentation of markets in the FCT, while also appealing to traders not to reside in markets.
The traders are also cautioned not to cook in the market and where there is electricity, all appliances should be put off to avoid a repeat of such inferno.
