A fire outbreak that started around 11:00 pm on Tuesday at Red Bricks quarters on Maiduguri Road, Damaturu, in Yobe State, have claimed the lives of a pregnant woman and her three children.
Giving an account of the incident, an officer of the Yobe State Fire Service Station, Usman Habu, said:
As we arrived at the scene, the husband, Malam Adamu Aliyu, in an effort to rescue his family, threw out his 5-year-old son, Faruq, from a story building.
But the fire overpowered and prevented him from rescuing his wife, Halima Usman, and three other children. He, however, managed to jump.
After we forcefully broke down the door, we recovered the dead bodies of wife and three of her daughters, Aisha, 10, Saadatu, 8, and Safiya, 2.
Habu also went ahead to urge the general public to always make provision for an exit door saying;
If there was an ‘escape door’, the man could have saved his family’s lives.
Speaking to newsmen, the Executive Secretary of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Muhammad Goje declared the wife and children dead.
He added that despite the curfew in the area, they were able to reach the six-storey house.
A doctor at Damaturu specialist hospital told newsmen that Mr Adamu who seems to be in a critical state has been attended to and will receive adequate treatment.
The doctor added that;
The patient was brought in with a flame burn at about 12 am this morning and according to the assessment that was made, the burns were about 20 percent of his body and he was attended to as a flame burn emergency.
According to the report I was given, there were people that lost their lives.
The cause of the fire which razed down two flats is still unknown.
