Shops destroyed as fire breaks out at Balogun market in Lagos

A five-storey building at Gbajumo Street, Balogun on Lagos Island has been razed by fire.

The fire reportedly started at midnight on Thursday.

Margaret Adeseye, director of the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service, said the fire started from the second floor of the building and spread to the other parts.

“The Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service is currently attending to a serious Fire outbreak at 3/5 Gbajumo Street,  Italian Plaza, Balogun, Lagos Island,” Adeseye said.

“The fire agency received a distress call at 23:54 hrs to Lagos Island, where a building used for warehouses and stores with multiple containerized shops was involved in a fire disaster.

“Two fire crews from the Ebute Elefun and Oniru were immediately mobilised to the scene while Alausa had since joined them to douse the raging fire, which was met well alight on arrival.

“The fire, however, involved a five-story building used for stocking and trading shoes, bags, jewelry, and other combustible products. It started from the second floor and spread to the first, fourth, and fifth floor where it has since been confined to.”

She said officers of the state fire service, federal fire service, and the police were working to put out the fire.

She noted that preliminary investigation revealed that the cause of the fire could be attributed to an electrical upsurge as power was restored in the community following an earlier outage.

The incident comes three months after a fire broke out at a section of the market in October 2022, destroying goods worth millions of naira.