Fire broke out in a hotel located off Kabuga road, Kimironko sector, in Gasabo District, reducing part of the building to ashes yesterday.

Video: Fire guts Kimironko-based hotel. Source:The New Times/You Tube

The fire which broke out at around 11.00am burnt a hotel owned by Winfred Phionah Mbabazi, which hosted two Pentecostal churches, music studio, a nursery school and guest house.

According to an eye witnesses, a sudden black smoke appeared from the roof, only later to realise it was fire spreading rapidly into other rooms."The fire spread rapidly. I tried to mobile rescue efforts but it was late; the fire quickly engulfed the building. All I did was to disconnect power so it couldn’t spread to neighboring buildings,” Aimable Munezero narrated.

Aime Dollar Rwakayiro, the headmaster of Canaan Nursery School-the affected school, said people scampering from the upper floor of the hotel alerted them that the building was on fire.

"I dashed to evacuate pupils in class. No body suffered injuries but chairs, tables and all the sound systems were destroyed,” he explained.

Speaking to The New Times, CSP Celestin Twahirwa, the Police spokesperson said the exact cause of the fire was yet to be established.

Police arrived about 20 minutes after the fire outbreak.

Assistant Commissioner of Police, Jean Baptiste Seminega, who was part of the fire brigade, called upon the public to install fire extinguishers on their buildings and use standard electric cables to reduce fire risks.

It was the second time fire had broken out at the affected building, the first having been a month ago."We advised them last time when this hotel caught fire to replace all substandard cables but it seems they never understood. We also told them to install fire extinguishers, now you see the outcome,” he noted.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw