Four shops were gutted in the famous Irish Potato Market in New Bell in the afternoon of Sunday, January 8. The fire broke out in a shop with refrigerators, fabrics and packs of second handed clothes, burning one shoe shop, one loin and wrapper stall in New Bell’s Irish Potato Market. A trader who still lingered around 2:30 pm spotted smoke billowing from the shop within the market complex. She alerted others who sold into the afternoon of Sunday. While a trader informed the Fire Brigade, others tried pouring buckets of water on the shop.

The flames, however, spread to adjoining shops, gutting two clothe-and-fabric shops and a shoe shop. It took fire fighters about an hour to douse the flames. Traders alleged that the fire resulted from the refrigerators which sparked off after electricity supplies were reinstalled following a blackout.

Soh Jacques, owner of the shoe shop, said at the time of the fire all of them (victims) had retired home. He said they retained following telephone calls, and only after the fire had been doused. “The articles consumed by the fire worth FCFA 2,8 million,” he told Cameroon Tribune yesterday. There were no human casualties, but unconfirmed estimates hold that tens of millions have been lost in the fire incident and no item in the shops concerned was recovered. Manye Charlotte and Hanson Nfor neighbouring traders who have not been affected by the fire said electricity supplies are permanently interrupted and they cannot sell without it. A team of evaluators from the Douala City Council and staff of the market were still to visit the market for official assessment and electrical reinstallation.

Worthy to note that the Civil Protection Commission, accompanied by Divisional Officers, mayors and fire fighters, undertook an evaluation tour to markets in Douala last December 28. It noted that Douala markets recorded 100 cases of fire incidents in 2011. Such catastrophes in the years gone by did not only lead to insurmountable economic consequences that compelled some traders to pack for their villages, but also slackened national economic growth and hastened drop in the living standard of individual households. A reasonably counter measure has been government’s creation of Department of Civil Protection in MINATD charged with sensitization and prevention of catastrophes, Civil Protection Director, Dr. Jean-Pierre Nana, explained. Insufficient equipments, vigilance and security, inability of existing security and vigilante, faulty electrical connections, predispose Douala’s markets to catastrophes, the commission underscored.