Following a fire outbreak at the Ullo Senior High School in the Jirapa Municipality of the Upper West Region, students of the school have been left traumatised over the incident.

With the inferno burning down the dining hall of the school, it is the latest fire incident to hit a SHS in the region after several others that have been recorded this year alone.

To sympathise with the situation of students in the school by bringing them some relief, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Zongo Development Fund, Madam Aisha Salifu, has presented some food items to the school to help ensure they are well fed and do not go hungry.

Presenting the items to the school in the midst of the pupils and authorities of the school, she mentioned the names and quantity of the food stuff she was donating to them while pledging to bring in more of the items when she returns to Accra.

Enumerating, she said: I brought you “70 bags 50kg of rice, 10 cartons of tomato paste,13 gallons of vegetables oil, 3 bags of gari, 8 bags of beans, 1 bag of groundnut, 2 bags of millet, 3 gallons of palm nut oil, And 10 bags of tombrown. So Mr. Headmaster for now, I think this should cover you for few days until we keep soliciting and getting you more stuff.If they behave well, we’ll get them milk, sugar and milo.”

The students, in hearing these announcements received the news with intermittent raptuous clappings and cheerings.

Addressing the students, she educated them on the need to eschew negative practices so as to make it through education even from humble beginnings and be responsible.

She appealed to them not to allow the traumatic experience from the inferno to affect their learning in anyway.

According to her, she was saddened when she heard of the destruction that the inferno had done to the school and was therefore eager to visit the school to see the extent of the damage.

She promised to lobby more from her colleagues as well as other areas to help bring the school back to its feet.

Colombo Issaka Mohammed, a quantity surveyor, speaking to the media, described the burnt down dining hall as a good structure but said there was the need for the roofing, electrical wiring and all other fittings to be replaced with new ones when renovating it.

“From my point of view, the building itself structurally, is ok. Structurally, there’s no serious thing on the building for, the building is solid. The roofing sheets, electrical (wiring) and any other thing have to go off. The floor; the tiles, I think we have to replace it with terrazzo. With terrazzo, it stands the test of time. I think basically, that is it,” the quantity surveyor explained.

He added that when it comes to the wiring of the structure, there is the need to do so with hire quality wires and cables to reduce the rate of fire outbreak that comes about as a result of poor wiring.

The contractor that built the dining hall that has been ravaged by the fire, Mr. Albert Beni, who was also at the event expressed his sadness over the destruction of the structure.

He said it was unfortunate to have the building destroyed that way since the school has no Assembly Hall nor an Administrative Block, adding that the dining hall also served as an event ground for the whole community.

Asked whether he would accept an award of a contract for a renovation of the building, Mr. Albert answered in the affirmative

He said that even though the structure has been burnt by fire, all the walls are still very strong and intact indicating, the execution of the contract by him was not done in a shoddy manner.

How the fire started

According to one of the students, the fire started in the early hours of Thursday, February 16, at about 2:am. He narrated that the fire started from the stores and was detected by one of his colleagues but all efforts to stop the spread of the fire failed.
He said that unfortunately, upon arrival of the two tenders the level of damage was unmeasurable.

Source: Sungmaale FM