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By Julius Barigaba
Kampala, Feb 25 2009

Fire this morning gutted Kampala’s largest market, St. Balikuddembe, burning to ashes property and merchandise worth billions of shillings.

Police authorities are yet to put their finger on the exact cause of the blaze, which various sources have reported started about 3 am, and went on till dawn.

The market, popularly known as ‘Owino’ holds up to 10,000 established stalls and another 8,000 makeshift stalls of vendors who earn a living by merchandising in food, charcoal, used clothes and assorted traditional medicines and herbs. Due to the congestion in the market, it was difficult for the police to quell the fire when the ill equipped fire fighting police department came in last night, Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura said today.

“As you know Owino was a congested market. So it was difficult for the police fire fighting trucks to go through all that the rubble created by the destroyed stalls. Even the trucks and firemen were at risk going into the blaze,” said General Kayihura.

The IGP however spared a few words of praise for his men who were prompt in responding to the catastrophe in under 20 minutes, he said. It has to be noted though that Owino market and the headquarters of Police’s Fire Department is just 500 metres apart in down town Kampala. In fact the two are separated by a couple of blocks, and it has to be expected that the fire men would respond promptly.

Putting out the fire remained a challenge and was getting more complicated by the hour as police logistical resources got overstretched. General Kayihura says the force has only three trucks fire trucks and three water trucks in Kampala. Overwhelmed by the daunting task at hand, the police called in private fire fighting firms Fire Masters and Balton Uganda to lend a hand, according to police spokeswoman Judith Nabakoba.

The other challenge was posed by the makeshift stalls that stood at outskirts of the market all around. These are made of wood and polythene material, which is a good burning substance, likely to burn for hours. To get to the inside of the market, the fire fighters had to overcome the blazing heaps of polythene.

At least five people—three women and two men—got injured while putting out the fire, and were rushed to hospital.

The police say they are still looking at a number of developing theories, not ready to dismiss anything at this point, but unconfirmed accounts have emerged that it is likely the fire came off materials that food vendors had left cooking. It is understood that food vendors were in the habit of having certain food and sauce types (such as beans, tough meat and cassava) to cook overnight.

The Owino blaze comes just weeks after the Nakumatt store in Nairobi got burnt and killed scores. In a report carried by one regional newspaper, it emerged that no country in East Africa was sufficiently equipped to deal with fire accidents of such magnitude. Indeed for Uganda, fires are not a strange happening. In April last year, over 20 children died in one such inferno at Buddo Junior School, and that incident sparked off a wave of several fires around the country, mostly targeting boarding schools. At least 14 schools, one media firm and several businesses mostly around the city were burnt.

And in all these cases, the performance of police’s fire department was found to be wanting. While the reports were filed as soon as the fires were discovered, witnesses variously said police took another three to fours to arrive at the scene.

Ends