Truckload of Mattresses Burnt at North Industrial Area

A Kia truck loaded with mattresses caught fire on its way out of the North Industrial Area Tuesday afternoon.

The fire occurred after the mattresses on the loaded truck struck an overhead electrical cable. The cable reportedly was sparking glisters of fire following the day’s rains.

Oblivious to the looming disaster, the driver kept driving until onlookers signaled him allowing him to escape unhurt.

Firemen arrived to douse the fire in 10 to 15 minutes, but nothing was salvaged.

Operational Officer for the Fire Service at the North Industrial Area, Divisional Officer Ebenezer Attah Akwaah, who confirmed the extent of damage to Citi News, said “the Kia truck and its content are totally burnt. There were no injuries”.

Hours after the truck had been towed away, one could see deep dark powdery substances from the burnt mattresses on the road. The huge smoke billowing in the sky earlier as a result of the fire was seen dying out slowly.

The flames of the fire however burnt some plastic products of a wayside trader known popularly as Auntie Akosua. She complained of the penchant of the mattress companies in the North Industrial Area to overload their trucks with the combustible products.

“This is very bad. When these trucks are passing, they overload too much. Sometimes they tear the electrical wires” she lamented.

“when the flame was blazing some of my things got burnt… I am yet to calculate the total loss. One man at Ashfoam asked me to bring a list of the things I lost to the flames.”

Meanwhile, the Marketing and Communications Manager for Ashfoam, Joe Ampem Darko Antwi, described the incident as an accident, adding that the company abides by the regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA).

“We don’t overload. Before our trucks move out of the factory we have levels that we load up to. Accidents do happen and the moment there is an issue, we all try to find faults and do measurements, but we have scaled it down to the point where in a day we just don’t load because we want to deliver. We don’t rush into delivery. Everything is calculated in the way that we cart our products,” he argued.