Property worth millions of shillings was on Friday evening destroyed after an inferno razed a carpentry workshop at St Joseph’s Polytechnic in Isiolo town.
Mr Steve Mathenge, who lives within the Isiolo town Catholic Church where the institution is located, said he noticed smoke billowing from the production unit and alerted security personnel for action.
While attributing the fire to an electric fault, Fr Jeremy Murithi said machines worth more than Sh5 million were destroyed.
According to Fr Murithi, the combined efforts of the church staff, the county fire team and residents helped put out the fire which nearly spread to an adjacent room where gas cylinders are kept.
“The fire was as a result of an electric fault said to have happened after rain water leaked into a power socket at the workshop where multi-million shillings machines and materials are kept,” said Fr Murithi.
Ms Pauline Kinyua, a child safety and protection officer at the church, lauded the county fire team for quick response to the incident.
“The fire team arrived at the scene in good time and together with church staff and residents we were able to put out the fire before it spread to other structures,” said Mr Mathenge.
But he lamented that the water in the fire engine ran out before the inferno could be completely extinguished, burdening residents who were using buckets to fetch water about 400 metres away.
“The county government should purchase more fire engines so that they complement each other while putting out fire,” said Ms Kinyua.
Governor Mohamed Kuti said plans are underway to purchase an extra fire engine to deal with growing cases of fires in the county.
“We are in the process of purchasing another fire engine to deal with the fires and help protect people’s property,” Dr Kuti said.