Not less than fifteen shops with goods worth millions have been razed at Agbani Road, in Enugu South Local Government Area of Enugu State.
The incident, our correspondent, gathered happened on Monday night.
The affected shops were located at the popular Garriki Market, Enugu.
Residents of the area said that a shopping plaza that housed electrical shops, hair saloons, phone accessories, Cafeteria and motor/motorcycle spare parts, were destroyed in the incident, which residents said, started from a refuse dump.
It was further learnt that the entire building would have been completely razed but for the intervention of residents who raced to the area on time to help douse the raging inferno.
He said: “I don’t know what actually caused the fire incident. I heard that someone set fire to a refuse in the gutter when they closed for business yesterday and the fire spread and caught the building that housed the shops.
“We also learned that the fire was caused by a Suya seller who probably did not put out the fire from his oven well.
“I live nearby. When I perceived the smell in the night around ten or eleven in the night, I thought it was my generator but when I came out to find out, I saw the shops in flame”.
He also said that when the Fire Service personnel came, they could not put out the fire because they lacked enough water. “It was people that started bringing water from everywhere that were able to contain the fire from consuming the entire building,” he also said.
When our correspondent arrived the scene of the incident, which was directly opposite Akwuke Junction, Agbani Road, sympathisers were busy trying to recover some goods from the wreckage while some others looked on aghast at the gory incident.