Fire incident has captured Okujagu slaughter market in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State.
It was gathered that the fire incident has destroyed items, goods and property worth millions of naira.
The Informant247 also gathered that the fire outbreak destroyed at least 10 houses.
The inferno was reportedly triggered by suspected smokers of substances who do not care usually for the leftovers.
One of the officers of the federal fire service, who stormed the affected area with his colleagues, after receiving an emergency call, was physically assaulted by suspected angry youth.
Abdullahi Alfa Audu, the Commander of the Federal Fire Service in the State, while confirming the attack on the officer of the fire service, said the youth were upset that his men did not reach the affected scene early to extinguish the fire.
He said: “We received a distress call and we turned up as usual to combat the fire. On getting there, we positioned our vehicle to start putting out the fire. Then hoodlums began to stone us. They beat up our men.
“They (firefighters) jumped into their vehicle to move. In the process, one of the firemen fell. They (hoodlums) held him and started attacking him with machetes.
“He had a deep cut on his hand. We rushed him to hospital and they stitched the hand and gave him pints of blood.
“We are complementing the efforts of the state firemen. The hoodlums don’t even know what we encountered before we got to the fire scene. They attacked us and tried to vandalise our vehicles.”