Local News
In Sierra Leone, Leicester Road Inferno renders Citizens Homeless
By Michael T. Kamara
Mar 6, 2012, 17:06

A popular Sierra Leonean businessman, Mohamed Conteh, aka ‘Bellez’ of Leicester Road, off Berry Street in Freetown, is among several other people rendered homeless, after a mysterious fire claimed their house on Sunday 4th March 2012. The fire lasted for two hours, before the intervention of fire officers, who succeeded in quelling down the fire from spreading to nearby houses.

One of the victims, Mohamed Conteh, told this reporter that, the destroyed house had been composed of four bedrooms and a living room plus an additional self-contained flat. He said several millions of leones worth of household furniture and equipments have been lost to the fire. He revealed that he was relaxing at the back of his house, when he heard people shouting and calling on neighbours for assistance. He further explained that he rushed to the scene and noticed that part of the house had already been engulfed by the fire and was spreading fast to other parts. At this point, he went on, he alerted the National Fire Force (NFF), who, according to him, came a little too late. He lamented that by the time the NFF arrived, his own flat was already down.

He said the fire was mysterious, adding that, there were no electrical appliances in the house that could have caused the fire, neither was there anybody cooking or using fire in the house prior to the outbreak. He also stated there was no inflammable liquids like petrol or kerosene stored in the house. 

Lead Fire Fighter from NFF, Sergeant Foday Bangura assured the victims at the scene, that the cause of the fire would be investigated.