27 December 2015, Jos – A midnight inferno on Boxing Day, razed a petroleum jelly industry, Bowlis Industries Nigeria Limited, located at the Rafin-Pa area of Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau State.
The inferno destroyed goods worth more than N80m at the company, which manufacturers of Vowles and Realine Pomade (Jelly) and perfumes.
Our correspondent gathered that the fire started at about 11pm when power was suddenly restored to the area.
The General Manager of the company, Malam Abubakar Muhammad, told journalists at the scene of the incident that workers had closed from work early because there was electricity supply to the facility.
He added, however, that he was alerted by some of their neighbours that fire had engulfed the factory.
“They told me that there was a spark from a high tension wire when electric city was restored, which dropped on the zinc of our production unit, they thought it was just the spark, they all went back into their home, but later discovered that the whole place was engulfed by fire,” Muhammad said.
He explained that as soon as he arrived at the company, he called the state fire service, who responded promptly with three of their trucks.
“One (truck) came first but the fire was too much, they called for reinforcement from Bukuru and the state Government house, and the fire was put out with the combined efforts of the neighboring community at about 12.45 am,” he said.
He expressed gratitude to God that no life was lost and nobody sustained injury.
The fire which engulfed the warehouse spread to the production, packaging and storage sections, and had caused loss of raw materials and finished products.
The GM said, “We lost raw materials worth N58.6m while the finished products worth N10.7m, Siemena mixer machines as well as small, medium and big fire extinguishers worth N4.4m.”
He said consumable items destroyed by the fire were worth N 5, 701, 500, while other items destroyed were been quantified, adding, “In summary we have in the interim calculated our loss to over N80m.”
- Punch
