Tamale: Fire sweeps through classrooms, offices at St. Charles SHS
Fire has ravaged structures at the St. Charles Minor Seminary Senior High School at Tamale in the Northern Region.
The fire occurred in the early hours of Sunday [August 15, 2021], and destroyed a storeroom containing student mattresses, six classrooms, and four offices.
There have been a series of fire outbreaks in the school in the past, with this being the latest.
The Headmaster of the school, Polycarp Kuusokub, confirmed the incident.
He said upon seeing the flames, a call was placed to the Ghana Fire Service to ensure that things did not get out of hand.
“We finished mass this morning and went to the house. But one of the English masters gave me a call that I should quickly come because the PTA block was on fire. That’s the place we keep mattresses and issue them out to the students when the need arises. So I rushed here and really saw that the fire has gutted the place, and we quickly arranged for the fire service to come.”
According to the headteacher, the school management will on Monday set up a committee made up of some teachers and students to investigate the cause of the fire while awaiting the report from the fire officers.
“I cannot say the precise cause of the fire. Tomorrow [ Monday], we will also set up our committee for our own investigations to establish the cause of the fire, while I await the report from the fire service to see what I will do.”
Even though the cause of the fire is not yet known, the Fire Service observed the lack of fire fighting extinguishers in the school and advised school management to acquire them.
“Today, at about 9:23 am, we received a call from our National Control Room about a fire outbreak at St. Charles. So the nearest fire station, which is the Tamale Teaching Hospital Fire station, was dispatched. On their way, they got stuck at about 9:27 am so a second station, the Tamale Metro fire station was dispatched, and they arrived at the scene at about 9:34 am, and when they got there, the six classrooms, four offices, and a storeroom were in flames, so they tried fighting it and brought it under control”, the Northern Regional Operations Officer of the Ghana National Fire Service, DO III Tisong Charles said.
