Car burnt, resident injured in fuel tanker fire in Victoria Island

A resident of Younis Bashorun Street, Victoria Island, Lagos was injured when a fuel tanker caught fire in the community on Tuesday, May 22, 2018, with another car getting completely burnt.

From information gathered by Pulse correspondents at the scene of the accident, a fully-loaded fuel tanker was offloading diesel to the generator for the block of apartments located towards the end of the street when a resident noticed a leak that had resulted in smoke.

An attempt by the resident to put out the resulting fire with a fire extinguisher worsened the situation as it blew up in his face and burnt part of it.

As the tanker caught fire around 10:00am, the fire further spread to a parked car nearby at which point residents of the community were already trying to salvage the situation by rallying to get buckets of water to put out the fire.

Despite their efforts, the fire escalated to burn a nearby transformer as well as blacken the wall of the closest building.

After emergency agencies arrived at the scene, residents were evacuated as officers of the Lagos State Fire Service battled to extinguish the fire with four fire trucks.

While they controlled the spread of the fire, officials of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency Response Unit and the Lagos Neighbourhood Safety Corps used barriers to keep members of the public out of the danger area.

The fire was eventually extinguished around 1:15pm, hours after it ignited and turned the community upside down with terror.