FIRE ENGULFS FOOTBRIDGE MALL.

A street kids territorial fight at the footbridge leading to Joina City Mall is being suspected to be the cause of the fire that engulfed Footbridge Mall, a newly constructed shopping mall at the corner of Julius Nyerere Way and Speke Avenue though it is not yet confirmed.

Causing great alarm and destruction of property, the fire is said to have originated from the footbridge and spread leading to Joina City Mall and subsequently spread to Footbridge Mall.

The building was heavily engulfed in flame, fortunately, no lives were lost as a result of the fire but property was damaged although the extent of damage is yet to be announced.

As luck would have had it, the Fire Brigade responded swiftly and managed to contain the fire from spreading further and causing more damage.

“Unfortunately equipment and furniture on two floors had burnt down. But they managed to contain the fire from spreading to other buildings,” Mayor Jacob Mafume explained in a video on X.

Fire accidents are now becoming common in the city of Harare. There is therefore dire need for short and easily memorable numbers to call service providers. For that network providers and city father’s need to come up with these numbers.

The Mayor goes on to say, “We have always maintained that the networks need to give us a dedicated line for us to get calls quickly. The numbers are too long and people do not know them. There is need for a service line like 911”.

The Fire Brigade are currently investigating the cause of the fire and details remain scarce.

There is however need for malls and shop owners to have easy reach fire extinguishers so that those who are close by when a fire breaks out (like security guards) can assist with efforts to stop the fire before it gets out of control.

Mayor Mafume commended the fire brigade for doing their job well as he said, “the fire brigade did what they were trained to do”.

Unfortunately, the fire exposed how people still lack in knowledge of how to behave in the event of a fire as people in some videos circulating are heard saying that people were looting in some shops that were on fire.

The aftermath of this blaze shows that there is a lot that needs to be done with issues of rapid response and authorities responsible should come up with better measures to avoid such disasters before they get out of control.