Fire guts Napier Market in Jinja for a fourth time

By Donald Kiirya

Vendors wept after fire gutted their merchandise worth millions of shillings at Napier Market in Jinja town. 

This is the fourth time the Market, which is adjacent to the Jinja bus park, gets burnt. The last incident occurred on October 21, 2011.

The inferno, whose cause yet to be established broke out at about 11:30pm on Sunday as people started the New Year and raged on for about two hours as fire fighters battled to put it out.

Vendors wept and others were seen searching through the destroyed property in order to save money like coins.
According to Suleiman Lwanga, the chairperson of United Traders of Napier Market Association said the fire destroyed over 500 stalls in the five sections of the market.

The affected sections included the old clothes, Matooke, old shoes and the rubber and tyre sections. It is reportedly said that it started in a stall which belongs to Adam who sells herbs.

“The fire was seen by security personnel who guard the market and called for rescue, it was put off from where it started from but after 30 minutes it again resumed from the rubber and tyre section and razed all the five sections,” said Lwanga.

He added that traders don’t know what caused the fire and Police fire brigades arrived at about 2:30am to help in putting off the fire.

The officer in charge of Fire at the Jinja Central Police Station, Richard Mudungu, said they received information about the fire at 2:30am yet it had begun at midnight.

“Police battled the raging fire for hours and managed to contain it by 6:00am,” said Mudungu.

Mudungu attributed the cause of the fire to illegal connections of power in the market and people who leave burning stoves in their stalls adding that Police had initiated investigations to find out the cause of the inferno.