A woman and her three children, including a month old baby, were burnt to death in their house in Nkangbe, a suburb of Minna, Niger state.
The fire incident which occurred at about 11.30 pm ranged for over three hours burning down the house completely.
However, the second wife identified as Fati and her two children were rescued with severe burns and is currently in the hospital.
The husband of the house whose name was given as Baba Abba was said not to be home when the incident happened as he worked in Abuja and come into town during the weekends.
The men of the fire service who were called responded to the distress call immediately but the rescue was hampered by the jammed doors and window burglaries, making rescue very difficult.
The neighbours said that they did not know the cause of the fire as they have not had electricity for over two months due to faulty transformer.
One of the neighbours who engaged in the rescue, who gave his name as Musa Ibrahim said that they called the fire service immediately they saw flames coming from the house.
He said they tried their best to rescue the women and the children but could not as the fire was very intense.
“We tried as much as we could but we couldn’t get inside. With the help of the fire service, we rescued the second wife through the window and she was wounded and had some burns.”
One of the men of the fire service said that they are still ascertaining the cause of the fire, “we received stress call from those in the area and the fire service came. We tried to help fight the fire. We met people trapped inside the house but was able to rescue only three people.
“There were four casualties and the cause of the fire is not known. The people here say their transformer is bad and they said the people in the house did not put on the generator that night.
“Everything in the house was burnt down, nothing could be savage. It is very unfortunate. We are awaiting the arrival of our Controller to access the house.”
Another fire service officer said, “The door was locked and jammed. if the window burglary was not there, we would have rescued them on time. The burglary hampered our rescue.”