Photos: Guinness warehouse gutted by fire in Lagos

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There has been a fire outbreak at a warehouse belonging to Guinness Nigeria Ltd located at Wempco road, close to Oluwole Estate Ogba area of Lagos State on Thursday morning.

According to reports, the fire started at about 2 am this morning.

The inferno destroyed the warehouse where Guinness Nigeria Ltd stores its plastic crates before fire authorities on ground put the fire under control as at 7 am.

Confirming the incident, Lagos State Fire Service acting director, Mrs Magret Adeseye said she received the emergency call at about 3:30 am.

“Immediately, I deployed my men to the scene of the fire at Guinness Nigeria at Wempco road, on getting here we got to know that it’s a warehouse with empty crates of bottles totally destroyed by fire, but no loss of life,” she said.

“The damping now is taking on, while the cause of the fire is yet to be determined,” she added.

On his part, the Director-General of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, Dr Femi Oke-Osanyintolu, said the agency received a call at about 4:05 am and immediately deployed officials to the scene.

Oke-Osanyintolu further stated that the immediate cause of the outbreak could not be determined while agency responders and LASG Fire Service officials are on ground to carry out a dampening exercise to forestall any spread or secondary incident.

He said, “Around 4:05 am, we were informed that there is a fire incident along Wempco road, we activated our emergency response plans, all the key stakeholders that are important in managing emergency moved to the scene.

“On getting to the scene, we discovered that a store that has a lot of crates of Guinness bottles was on fire, and we were able to curtail the spread by 7 am, we put out the fire finally, we are now doing the damping,” he added.

Oke-Osanyintolu, however, urged the company to follow procedures in ensuring the safety of their workers while extrapolating the advice to other companies.

“I will appeal to the management of this place that they should put fire hydrant in their premises, and we are extrapolating to other companies that have these types of storage facilities. We are also appealing to do material testing of the structure and ensure the safety of their people.

“We have put out the fire, we have condoned the place off, and we will do a holistic investigation to really ascertain the cause of the fire. There is no loss of life but the damages is enormous,” he added.

Scene of the fire of Guinness warehouse, Lagos