One of Kigali’s most popular furniture hubs, Agakiriro was for the third time engulfed in fire on the morning of Tuesday, August 17 which destroyed merchandise valued in hundreds of millions. When The New Times visited the area, Rwanda National Police’s fire and rescue brigade together with area residents were trying to put out the inferno. Many people were seen working with police holding the fire hose while others were fetching water from nearby ponds in an effort to put out the fire before it spread to the entire market. According to witnesses, the stock destroyed was estimated at Rwf300 million. Also present were agents of several insurance companies to commence the preliminary findings to see how they can swiftly reimburse those who had taken out insurance on their shops. Paccy Tuyishime, an eyewitness said that the fire originated from a nearby shop that sells mattresses. “We saw flames and smoke billowing from the mattress shop, but since mattresses are highly inflammable products, we couldn’t extinguish the fire or save anything before the other shops were gutted,” he recounts. Our assessment established that at least five shops were totally gutted from this incident. Francois Uwamahoro, one of the shop owners that was gutted, said that he has lost over Rwf40 million. “We were surprised by the fire outbreak, I have lost over Rwf40 million, I have no insurance but was planning to have one,” he said. Asked the reason behind the fires, he said: “We work in an environment that requires use of electricity all the time these fires are caused by electrical short circuits according to findings of investigations from previous incidents.” Some of the gutted shops sold mattresses, timber, metallic objects among others from the building owned by Adarwa Cooperative. The carpentry market has been engulfed by series of fire incidents over the years and gutted properties valued at more than Rwf2 billion. Investigations have established that the incidents might be occurring due to faults in electrical installation.
