No fewer than fifty timber shades and carpentry workshops were burnt down on Saturday, 15th September, in a market midnight fire in Jos, capital of Plateau State.

Yusuf Aliyu, chairman of the Timber ‘B’ Hausa Line Association, on Sunday, narrated how the incident occurred at Katarko Market.

“I was at home at about 1 a.m. midnight when I received calls from different individuals that our market was on fire. In no time, I arrived at the market to see various timber shades and carpentry workshops on fire. Luckily enough the firefighters had already been informed and arrived on the scene on time. They were able to put down the fire around 4 a.m.

“About fifty timber shades and workshops were affected and properties worth millions of naira destroyed,” he said.

He said the cause of the fire was yet to be known but he suspected an electrical fault

Aliyu said many poles and other electrical appliances in the market were dilapidated and needed to be replaced for safe power supply.

He called on state government and the Jos Electricity Distribution Company to come to their aid.

In 2018, the same market got burnt following an electrical fault. In that incident too, properties worth millions of naira were lost.

This will definitely affect Jos as a whole.