AN early morning fire, on Wednesday, gutted sections of the Mamman Kotangora building, destroying documents and other valuables.

The 14-storey building, situated on Broad Street, Marina, serves as the office complex for a number of Federal Government agencies, including the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Commission (NDIC), as well as a branch of Wema Bank and Diamond Bank, a law firm, among others.

According to information gathered, the early morning fire started at the building’s third floor, which served as the its generator centre.

Trouble was said to have started when one of the generators caught fire and spread to some of the stored diesel and other combustibles on the floor.

An explosion, it was gathered, soon ensued, which led to the inferno that massively gutted the third, fourth and seventh floors.

But strangely, after totally consuming the third and fourth floors, the fire somehow “jumped” the fifth and sixth floors to the seventh floor, which was also badly burnt.

When confirming the development to the Nigerian Tribune, which had arrived at the scene of the fire as firefighting efforts were ongoing, the head of Operations, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Mr Femi Giwa, confirmed that nobody died or got injured in the incident.

Giwa, who spoke on behalf of the General Manager of the agency, Mr Femi Osanyitolu, said the timely intervention of fire fighters, the LASEMA team, as well as the Nigerian police, among others, prevented the fire from affecting two other buildings - the Eko Electricity Distribution Company and the Shell Building - which sandwich the burnt building.

Nigerian Tribune counted at least 10 fire fighting trucks which were all involved in battling out the inferno that lasted for about four hours.