By: Daniel Garteh

Residents of Sanniquellie were seen in panic on Tuesday night when a fire gutter in shops and family homeless.

Not knowing the actual cause of the fire, the shop owners had carried on with their normal businesses in the day and parked and went home, but to the dismay of many, they saw a fire that gutter on one of the buildings and later spread across the other shops.

It took some well-meaning citizens no time as they struggled to put most of the goods in the shops outside while the heat and fast roving fair could not permit them to get all the goods outside.

As they fought to safeguard most of the goods, some criminal-minded people penetrated and made away with drinks that were taken from those shops, thereby inflicting the pain and loss those people were already enduring.

During the fight to extinguish the fire, the fire truck was recently turned over to the county by businessman Tomah Sei Floyd Sr as the Liberia National Fire Services guys joined in the fight to quench the fire.

On Wednesday morning, one of the shop owners, Mercy Dahn, explained that she was at home when one of her sons came running and that her shop was on fire.

“For me, my shop didn’t get on fire, but most of the things taken from the shop by good citizens were stolen by criminals who came around.”

About 4 shops, including a residential home,, all got damaged by the fire outbreak as there was no means of taking out their personal belonging,s, including cash.

One of the victims, Rita Lakpor, who runs the SY Business Center, explained in a teary moment that she was unable to take anything from her shop.

“ I came from Ganta yesterday with some goods and parked it to go attend the Karnplay market day, which is every Wednesday; we left home and received a call by 9:25 PM when someone called my boyfriend that our shop was on fire”, lamented Rita.

Recently, businessman Tomah Sei Floyd Sr turned over a brand new truck to the county for usage, as the firefighter was seen using the truck to fire the fire.

Many residents said that due to the intervention of the firefighters, the outback could not extended to the nearby building that has been used as a storage to store over 50 drums of gasoline.

The residents asserted that if the fire truck was not in Sanniquellie, the disaster could have been beyond what is experienced now.

Recently, there was another fire outbreak in Ganta that damaged over 4 business centers, including a mini guest house.