No fewer than 17 shops were destroyed after a fire swept through Sabo Market in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State in the early hours of Tuesday.

According to Punch Newspapers, the fire broke out at about 1:10 a.m. and was contained before it could spread to other parts of the market.

The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, through its spokesperson Olawale Afolabi, said preliminary findings indicated that the blaze started in one of the shops before spreading to adjoining stalls.

LASEMA said the fire was suspected to have been caused by an electrical surge, as power supply was reportedly on when the incident occurred.

Emergency responders from LASEMA and the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service quickly brought the fire under control, preventing a larger disaster.

A post-incident assessment showed that 17 of the 32 shops in the affected section were damaged. Provisions, groceries, foodstuffs and other goods were destroyed.

Despite the losses, no deaths or injuries were recorded. The remaining shops in the affected row and nearby sections of the market were largely saved due to the swift response of emergency teams.

LASEMA confirmed that recovery operations had been completed and its response team had returned to base.

The agency’s Permanent Secretary, Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, urged traders, market leaders and residents to prioritise electrical safety by ensuring proper wiring, avoiding overloaded electrical appliances and carrying out regular inspections of electrical installations.

He also encouraged residents to report emergencies through the state’s toll-free emergency numbers, 112 and 767.

The incident comes just three days after a separate fire gutted a three-storey residential building in the Ikosi area of Lagos. That incident also recorded no fatalities.