Boy, 6, sets five chamber and hall rooms ablaze

A six-year-old boy has inadvertently set fire into a five chamber and Hall room house at Anlo Town, a suburb of the New Juaben South Municipality in the Eastern Region displacing 30 occupants of the house and destroying properties worth of thousands of Cedis.

The entire house has been razed down by the fire which started around 5:30 pm Tuesday, June 26, 2019. No injury or casualty has been recorded.

Starr News has gathered that the boy was playing with a fire matchbox and allegedly lighted a stick of the match into a broom, abandoned it under a Mattress and left the room sensing danger without telling anyone.

Few minutes later, the fire transitioned from incipient stage to fully developed stage as it spread to other rooms in the house consuming all the household properties before the arrival of the Fire Service Personnel who got to the scene late because of the information to them late.

It took the firefighters over two hours to douse the fire.

The acting Public relations officer of the Eastern Regional Fire Service, Station Officer 1 Daniel Tetteh, said the victims and even residents around did not know the emergency number of the fire service so failed to call early.

“We engaged two pumps so the men were able to put off the fire after the fire we did the salvaging work we interrogated one or two people and the information they gave us was a little boy around 6 years called Nana was playing in room 3, scratch a match, put it on a broom under a mattress and when he saw that it started fire he came out without telling anybody so by the time they realized the fire was out of hands so they don’t even know the fire service number to call”.

He added “anytime we have the platform we advise parents not to leave matches for children to have access to it so parents have a responsibility. We are in a raining season so why should we have a fire outbreak but because of carelessness and ignorance”.

The devastated displaced occupants of the house who have lost all their belongings are now perching with friends and families in the area.