A trader counting losses has revealed little-known details about a fire incident on the morning of Sunday, May 18, which destroyed goods worth hundreds of thousands.
The inferno broke out at around 3am, razing several stalls in the footwear section adjacent to Lamu Road in Pumwani, Majengo.
While speaking to the media in the aftermath of the fire, one trader, who was arguably the hardest hit by the fire, revealed that the fire broke out in the storage area, where most of their goods are stored for the night before release in the morning to wholesalers and retailers.
The distressed trader further blamed the adverse effects of the fire on the slow response from the fire department, with locals being forced to improvise before rescue arrived.
“I received a call this morning that there was a huge fire where we keep our stock. The fire started at the store, where we hold our goods. It was razed for a while before firefighters arrived. By the time they came, the fire had already spread to more stalls,” the trader lamented.
While declining to estimate the value of the goods, the trader further revealed she had lost at least 50 sacks of shoes from the fire.
She added, “I had more than 50 sacks. I cannot exactly approximate the value, but it is a lot of money.”
Kenyans.co.ke sought further details from a renowned shoe retailer who plies his trade in Gikomba, who raised questions about the timing of such incidents.
"In this latest incident, you can see the fire broke out on a Sunday morning, when no shoe retailers go to work. It can't happen on a weekday because we are usually up by 3am, looking for shoes for our clients. So it's suspicious," he said.
According to the retailer, no one knows for sure the source of the fire, although a lot of the circumstances surrounding infernos in Gikomba point to arson, possibly from business rivalries.
Asked what solution could be taken to mitigate such risks in the past, the trader said the government should invest in more open spaces in Gikomba since stalls are extremely close together, further exacerbating the risk of huge losses in the event of a fire.
Further, the fact that most stalls are made of wood also makes it extremely difficult to contain infernos once they break out.
