Scene of fire

Ayo Oladiran

No fewer than 50 Houses have been affected by a fire outbreak on Church Street, Makoko area of Lagos state.

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Houses in the area are structured rooms in clusters with minimal organization and sub-par structural integrity, forcing them to collapse under the heat and flames.

The fire which began on Tuesday afternoon, has according to sources, claimed no lives after two persons were originally reported to have died.

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Residents said the fire had began sometime around past 3pm, but they had underestimated it until it gathered momentum and began to feed on the buildings.

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One of the residents said they immediately reached out to the emergency services but they failed to show up on time, prompting them (residents) to make efforts to put out the fire themselves.

Efforts to determine the source of the fire proved futile, although first responders confirmed to IBrandTV that fire fighters had been deployed to the scene.

Between the time of first call to the fire service and the time of arrival were two hours.

A check on Google maps showed that it would have taken the servicemen one hour, 32 minutes to get from Apapa to Makoko in a functional vehicle, but it took a little over two hours.

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Google maps time of arrival estimation

On why the federal fire service on Cregg street, Surulere, was not preferred instead as a closer alternative, residents confirmed they had reached the federal fire service but they had yet to show up.

A search on Google maps indicated that the federal fire service on Cregg was barely 23 minutes away.

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Distance between the federal fire service and scene of fire

IBrandTV put a call across to the Director-General, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, but he failed to take calls.

See video of incident below:

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