Goods worth millions of shillings were lost after an inferno gutted down at least 13 business premises in Longisa town.
Confirming the incidents that occurred, Kapkimolwa senior Chief Paul Langat informed KNA that the cause of the inferno was yet to be established but said no causalities were reported.
“Residents have lost millions of assets through this unfortunate incident, 13 shops and assorted furniture stores were completely razed down,” said Langat.
“Efforts to put out the blaze was futile as the fire emergency team arrived late. “We haven’t established the cause but we suspect it was caused by a fire that was left open,” added chief Langat.
Visiting the affected business owners, Bomet governor Dr Hillary Barichok promised the affected residents that his administration will assess the degree of damage caused with a view of assisting the affected residents.
“Regrettably fire gutted down business premises here in Longisa leading to a significant loss of property, we have visited the affected residents and families as we speak a team is assessing the impact of the damage with the view of assisting the victims.
The governor also downplayed reports indicating that the county fire engine was leased to the Kisumu county government hence failing to respond appropriately to the incident when needed.
“We have seen unconfirmed reports being peddled about my administration leasing our fire extinguisher to Kisumu, those are misguiding information, we only have one fire extinguisher and currently, it’s under routine maintenance in Kisumu,” explained Dr Barchok.
The governor also indicated that his administration is in the process to acquire fire engines for every sub-county to fight future infernos.
By Lamech Arisa
