‘NITEL building fire caused by electrical sparks’

Defunct Nigerian Telecommunication, NITEL building in Lagos Island Local Government was yesterday gutted by fire, damaging property which worth could not be ascertained.
This came barely hours after the State government said that 15 distress calls were responded to on Monday.
And that the emergency responders have responded to over 42 emergency calls through the toll free lines in the first week of December. While a total of over 1, 667 emergency calls have been responded to from January 1st till date.
Vanguard gathered the fire started at about 6 pm at the top of the 32 storey building, forcing the occupants and passersby to raise alarm over the inherent danger the fire would have on the structure.
Sources said that the floor was filled with used combustibles which further escalated the fire.
Confirming the fire incident, the Director of the Lagos State Fire service, Mr. Rasak Fadipe said that the fire was caused by an electrical spark at the top floor of the building.
According to him, “the major source of power supply for the occupants of the building had been generator. But today, they switched to the public power supply. After switching to the power supply, one of the cables malfunction on the floor hence the fire.
“The fire was further escalated by the combustible materials on the floor. And for us to attack such fire, we had to go through the staircase. And within few minutes we put out the fire. I can assure you that there was no serious damage on the building,” he added.