Fire has gutted parts of the Job 600 building in Parliament. The fire started early Tuesday, August 27, 2024. The blaze caused damage to a storeroom, though the exact cause of the fire has yet to be determined. Investigations are ongoing to identify the source and extent of the damage. Thick smoke could be seen coming out from some offices with personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service trying to douse the fire.
Staff and workers in the building were swiftly evacuated to designated assembly points as emergency services worked to extinguish the fire and investigate its cause. The Greater Accra Regional Commander of the Ghana Fire Service, ACFO 1 Roberta Aggrey Ghanson, told Citi News that her team is working to contain the fire to prevent it from spreading to other rooms.
She also confirmed that no casualties have been recorded so far, and the situation is under control.
“Around 9:45 am we received a distress call and in less than 5 minutes our appliance was here. What we are seeing now is a fire that has affected one of the rooms. It is like a store room because we have some storage items there. So, our aim now is to get the fire confined. After the fire is confined, then we know how to extinguish it. But the most important thing for us now is to confine the fire so that it doesn’t travel to other unaffected rooms.
“If we knew what caused the fire then it would be after our firefighting. But at the moment, the situation is very calm and everybody should put their heart at rest,” she stated.
Job 600, commissioned by President Akufo-Addo in November 2020, is an annex to the Parliament Chamber.
The building, constructed under the Parliament House Physical Infrastructure Enhancement Project, is part of broader efforts to comprehensively address the longstanding infrastructure challenges faced by Parliament.
