Firefighters drawn from the Federal Fire Service FFS and the Federal Capital Territory FCT Fire Service had their hands full on Friday evening following an outbreak of fire at an unmarked apartment in the highbrow Jabi area of the territory.
The apartment is House 6 on Patrick O. Bokkor Crescent, adjacent NCDC Office.
While the firefighters battled the Jabi inferno, a filling station by Halli Brothers in the Wuse Zone 1 area of the territory.
However, the situation in Jabi took a turn for the worst as some hoodlums attacked the firefighters and destroyed their firefighting appliances. Consequently, the operatives pulled out of the area pending police reinforcement.
“Men of the Federal Fire Service were mobbed by residents of the area. Their firefighting trucks were vandalized and so they had to pull out. We in the FCT Fire Service also pulled out. We have called for police reinforcement and would soon go back when the police are able to secure the area”, said spokesman of the FCT Fire Service, Ibrahim Mohammed Tauheed.
About seven fire trucks were already deployed to put out the inferno at the Jabi apartment, a development which made response to the filling station fire, slow.
An official of the FCT Emergency Management Agency FEMA said that the apartment fire started from a single room and had spread to another building outside the premises.
He said; “The fourth fire truck is on and it (fire) is still raging badly. It’s a Lodge, that was being refurbished. Fire started from a single room, but they were searching for the key to the room, then it went wild..
“Five Federal/FCT Trucks, two more from Julius Berger. Apparently, it is even two buildings on fire. It spread from one house to the next one”.
