Several residents of Chugbor Community, Montserrado County District#10 escaped death early Tuesday, August 10, 2021, when a fire erupted on a community transformer due to overloading as a result of power theft, damaging it completely.
One of the victims Ciapha G. Mandomasa narrates that as early as 7: am he was pressing in the room trying to get prepared for the job when he heard a sound from the LEC pole, and when he came outside, he saw the pole gutted by fire that was escalating gradually to extend to nearby homes.
According to him, he tried offing the fire with sand but due to the velocity of the flames, he just could not do it alone until he was joined by other residents of the community.
“We did our best but we could not off the fire and it was gradually escalating. However, we off the central breaker that controls the pole in our community to prevent the fire from getting to our homes before calling LEC to help us. Meanwhile, when we off the breaker, we were able to off the fire with sad through the help of other residents’’, Ciapha explained.
When asked what caused the fire, he noted that the fire broke out as the result of power theft or illegal connection.
He narrated that while they were asleep, they received information that an individual had climbed on the light pole to carry on an illegal connection, but they did not take it seriously.
He said this is not the first power theft in the community, noting that they had informed the LEC about it severally and management has been a great help to them.
“If God was not going to bring me out to see that, I believe that at this time we were going to be dead. Currently, we have over 25e persons that are connected to the pole. If we were going to be in bed, we all could have become dead bodies by this time”, Ciapha G. Mandomasa said.
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At the same time, he is calling on Liberians to report power theft in their communities, as this is a major cause of the many fire incidents across the country. Editing by Jonathan Browne
