TheGhana National Fire Service is reporting that it has recorded some 243 fire disasters in the country in the past one-and-a-half weeks alone.
The outrageous number of fires occurred between 24th December, 2019 and the 3rd January 2020.
According to the Service, the main cause of the many fires so far is carelessness on the part of the people.
The consequences have been that, properties worth millions of cedis have been destroyed in these fires. Just yesterday, some 80 wooden structures at a slum in Achimota were razed down by yet another fire.
Assistant District Officer Michael Walter Okai, has said that the public has to start behaving responsibly, and that the statistics show that the lack of fire precaution is the main cause of the fiery disasters in the country.
“There are five main causes of fires – carelessness, accidents ignorance, arson, and natural fires; what we call the act of God. Of these, only the natural fires are not man made; the other four are all man made.
“The trend shows that most of the fires that we are talking about resulted from carelessness,” he said.
According to him, the trend is disappointing because the GNFS has been sensitizing people on the need to be exceptionally cautious in the current harmatan weather, but it seems nobody is taking the educational campaigns seriously.
The GNFS usually intensifies educational campaigns on fire during the last quarter of every year because of the dry harmatan weather which starts from October to March.