Duraplast has lost its entire stock of pipes after an early-morning fire gutted a warehouse at the company’s facility in the North Industrial Area at Avenor, Accra, with the company’s Marketing Manager, Emmanuel Donkor, blaming the intensity of the blaze partly on illegal structures behind its premises and revealing that the facility’s fire hydrants were empty.

Speaking to the media after the fire broke out, Mr Donkor said he arrived at the office at about 6:45 am and was informed that a fire had started at the company’s annex.

“I got to the office about 6: 45, and then I was told that there was a fire at the annex. So some colleagues and I came here, and then we called the fire service. They told us they were on their way.”

He said two fire engines initially arrived at the scene but struggled to contain the blaze, which had already gained significant intensity.

“First, about two fire tenders came; they couldn’t control the fire. If they had come 30 minutes or 20 minutes before, we could have just stopped the fire there and then,” he said.

Mr Donkor also disclosed that Duraplast had firefighting hydrants on its premises, but they did not have water at the time of the incident.

“But all our hydrants (at Duraplast) were also empty,” he said.

He said the company was subsequently forced to contact Ghana Water to seek assistance in securing water to support firefighting efforts.

“So what we did was to call Ghana Water. I spoke to the regional engineer, and he spoke to the district engineer,” Mr Donkor said.

According to him, another major difficulty confronting efforts to contain the fire was the presence of what he described as illegal structures immediately behind the company's wall.

“The challenge currently here is the illegal structures here; that is where the fire started from. It started from the illegal structures just behind our wall,” he said.

The fire then spread towards Duraplast's premises, putting its stock of pipes at risk.

Mr Donkor said the company attempted to salvage some of its products by deploying a forklift to move the pipes away from the flames.

“What we did was to get our forklift to start removing the pipes. The pipes are products of petrol, so most of them easily got burnt.”

However, the efforts were unable to prevent extensive destruction, with Mr Donkor describing the company's losses as “enormous”.

Asked about the extent of the damage to the company's property, he said:

“Enormous, all our stock. Our pipes stock is gone. All our pipes have been destroyed.”

The fire broke out early on Thursday at the North Industrial Area in Avenor, with firefighters working to bring the flames under control.

The cause of the fire is yet to be established.