Fire guts petrol station, destroys shops, buildings in Ibadan

A fire incident, which occurred on Monday, completely burnt down Al-Amin filling station located at Elebu area of Ibadan.

Mr Omole Ayodeji, the Federal Fire Service station Officer, while speaking with journalists said that the service responded swiftly when they got the call.

He said “We got a call about an hour ago and we did not get exactly what was going on but on getting here we met the filling station on fire and it had already spread out to the building behind it.

“So, we went to the building behind and put off the fire first to stop further spread to other buildings, before coming back to put off the fire at the filling station.

“We are not sure of what caused the fire but l think what happened was that the tanker was off- loading and maybe there was a spark which caused the fire.”

NAN reports that two shops inside the petrol station, a section of a building behind it and money from sales made for the day, which was said to be kept inside one of the stores in the filling were also destroyed by the fire.

Speaking on the incident, one of the workers in the station, Mr Shina Siba, said that the fire started suddenly when a tanker loaded with 33,000 litres of petrol was off-loading into the underground tank.

Siba said that the fire started around 4.20p.m and it took the fire service about 40 minutes to arrive at the scene of the fire outbreak.

He said that everything inside the filling station got burnt, adding that he was still in shock and could not even recollect other things affected by the fire at that moment.

However, the Principal Fire Service Superintendent in the State, Mrs Sakirat Ogunayo, said that no casualty was recorded during the inferno.

According to her, the filling station was located around residential buildings and the fire could have escalated if not for the prompt arrival of officers of the fire service.

She appealed to filling station owners to always leave a gap between the station and residential buildings.