Fire razed Filmhouse Cinema at the Apapa Shopping Mall in Apapa Lagos State on Friday.
Activities were going on as usual in the mall when customers and workers started perceiving the smell of burning substances, emergency workers alongside curious customers in the mall traced the smell of the burning substances to the cinema that had been abandoned for a while.
Upon the detection, a temporary shutdown of business operations in the mall was ordered as customers and workers in the mall were told to vacate the building.
An informant in the mall said the fire started around 11 am, adding that the situation threw customers and workers into a panic, but no lives were lost.
He said, “The fire started around 11 pm and based on what I gathered, the fire occurred at the film house’s shop in the mall. Some people said the fire was caused by an electrical fault.
They had to evacuate people and called in the fire service. When the fire service officials came, they put everything under control and put the fire out around 2pm. Normal activities have resumed in the mall.”
Margaret Adeseye, the Director, Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service, who confirmed the incident, said it took a long time for people to discover the fire burning in the cinema because it was abandoned.
She said, “The Filmhouse Cinema is not in use. By the time we were alerted and got to the place, we realized that the fire had burnt for quite some time. Almost every abandoned material in there was already burnt to ashes. The mall is a one-storey building and the film house is housed at the upper floor of the building.’’
Adeseye added: “We are still trying to unravel the possible cause. We got the fire alert around 11.50 am and the fire was extinguished around 2 pm. No life or injury was recorded.”
