The Saka Tinubu area of Victoria Island, Lagos, on Tuesday went into a chaos as fire broke out of the national sales office of Visafone Communications Limited.

Recharge cards and equipment, said to be worth millions of naira, were lost to the fire which lasted for hours, but the good news is that no life was lost.

The cause of the fire could not be ascertain as at the time but was said by the fire fighters to have started on the ground floor of the building from the vault, where recharge are stored.

Razaq Fadipe, Director, Lagos State Fire and Safety Service, said that over 50,000 litres was used in putting out the fire. He said the fire was difficult to put out because of the peculiarity of the building.

He said that they (the fire fighting team) rushed down to the scene of the fire outbreak at about 12:56pm and were able to evacuate the occupants at 33 Saka Tinubu Street, Victoria Island, which is where the national sales office of Visafone is located.

Fadipe said that he had to get three fire trucks from Onikan, Eti-Osa and Lagos Island fire stations because there was no water at the company, and the Federal Fire Service also provided a truck of water but the fire proved stubborn. He explained that each truck contains 10,000 litres and that they all had to refill twice each in order to put out the fire.

Fadipe stressed the need for companies to organise fire drills for their staff as this would let them know what to do in case of fire.

The Public Relation Officer, Visafone, Mr. Joseph Ushigiale, said he could not say how much the company had lost to the fire.

Commenting on the reason why the office was arranged in the manner that hindered the fire fighters’ work, Ushigiale said, “The office was arranged in that manner because as a telecommunications company, we make use of many cables and certain equipment. He however thanked the fire service for their swift response.