Lightening ignites fire at NNPC depot

A mysterious fire on Wednesday gutted the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation depot in Pogo area of Minna, Niger State and consumed one of the storage tanks at the depot before it was brought under control.
The cause of the fire was however not made known by the depot officials.
Our correspondent gathered from witnesses that the fire may have resulted from lightening and thunder bolts that struck the facilities during a torrential rainfall at about 8.30pm.
According to an eyewitness: “The inferno lasted for over four hours from 10pm on Wednesday to 2am on Thursday morning before it was put off by the joint efforts of the depot fire fighters and men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.”
It was gathered that the tank that was gutted by fire had its thunder and lightening ‘arrestor’, a vital safety device to prevent thunder attack, stolen few months ago.
Two of the thunder arrestors were said to have been stolen from the depot in February, forcing the management in a memo to the security firm handling the facility to ban staffers of a contractor company from entering the facility.
An eyewitness said that as soon as the thunder struck, the tank caught fire and went up in flames and that the alarm by some staff on night duty attracted people around, including fuel tanker drivers, who mobilised to curtail the fire and prevented it from spreading to other tanks at the deport.
Some of the fuel tanker drivers were said to have panicked and ran away with their trucks from the depot in pandemonium.
The lack of water at the deport was said to have presented a challenge to the fire fighters as three of the boreholes in the depot were said to have dried up, forcing the fire fighters to seek help from their colleagues in Suleja depot of the Corporation for supply of water.
No life was lost and the extent of damage was said to be minimal due to non-availability of petroleum products at the storage tanks.
Efforts to get the reaction of the Depot Manager, N. Loveday, failed as he said he was not competent to speak on the fire incident.
When contacted Loveday simply said: “I am expecting my superior from Abuja and Kaduna.
“I am not competent to speak on the incident.
“Everything is under control now and workers are now at their duty posts.”