A dawn fire in Kpalsi, a suburb of Tamale in the Northern Region, has killed one person.

Ibrahim Sultan, in his mid-twenties, was caught up in the blaze that began from his one bedroom apartment in a six-apartment house.

According to an eye-witness account, the fire began at about 3am Tuesday from the room of the deceased.

Screams were heard from his room, the eyewitness said.

“I saw everybody trying to call the fire service. We were able finally to get them and they arrived to put a stop to the fire.”

The Assistant Chief Fire Officer, Godwin Damalie, intimated, “My men arrived at 3:30am, began extinguishing the inferno and within 30 minutes they had extinguished it but we found a motionless person”.

According to Assistant CFO Damalie, they contacted the police and a pathologist, who confirmed the person had died.

The body was then picked by family members for burial.

Asst. CFO Godwin Damalie bemoaned how citizens have become afraid of thieves, but neglect the need to put measures in place to allow fire officers get access to their homes when there is an outbreak.

He said fire officers are unable to break through rooms because of steel works and burglar-proofs installed in many homes.

He also observed the house lacked gables hence the fast spread of the fire to all rooms, destroying virtually every property.

He was unable to tell the cause of the fire but suspects an electrical fault

“Residents say there was intermittent power outage before the inferno began.”