Fire guts KNUST's Unity Hall
Fire has gutted portions of the Block “B” of the Unity Hall of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
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Ten rooms of the sixth floor of the eight-storey building were burnt to ashes. The cause of the fire was not known. There was no casualty.
But the ingenuity and professionalism of the men from the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) prevented the inferno from spreading to other portions of the building.
Students on recess
The students are currently on vacation but portions of the building, including the gutted rooms, were being occupied by guests from Kuapa Kokoo Limited, a cocoa buying group that was going to hold a three-day annual general meeting on the campus.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic immediately after bringing the fire under control, Division Officer Grade III of the GNFS, Mr Francis Darko-Kokon, who is the head of the KNUST fire station, said they received a distress call and had to rush to the scene without any let or hindrance.
He, however, complained bitterly about lack of access to the building, a situation which forced the firemen to park the fire engine metres away from the main building.
That, he explained, meant that the men had to join and take the water hoses to the sixth floor, lower them before connecting the hose to the fire engines, adding that “the way the hall is built, covered with other structures, no vehicle can enter”.
Regarding fire hydrants, Mr Darko-Kokon said the authorities recently constructed four in addition to the existing one but all had low water pressure during the time of the fire.
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He explained that the the fire officials had to connect two hydrants to each fire engine, fill them and use the engines to put out the fire.
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