Sunyani — Properties worth thousands of Ghana Cedis were on Thursday night destroyed when fire gutted a house at New Town Extension, a suburb of Sunyani.

According to a tenant, the fire started in one of the rooms, but before firemen arrived, it had spread to about 10 other rooms of the 22-room house. She said but for the timely arrival of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), the fire would have spread to other buildings nearby.

According to the landlord, Mr. Kwasi Kyeremeh, he was alerted around 20:00 hours by a sister to one of the tenants, Kofi Wiredu, in whose room the fire is believed to have started

According to an eyewitness, the fire is believed to have been ignited by a candle used by Kofi Wiredu, who had gone out when the incident happened.

However, prior to the fire outbreak, there were intermittent power outages and eyewitnesses believed that it could also have been the cause of the fire outbreak.

The fire caused extensive destruction to the belongings of tenants in the house. It took fire personnel about five hours to put out the fire.