A fire outbreak has gutted a multi-million naira palm kernel oil extracting industry in the Onuebonyi area of Abakaliki, the capital of Ebonyi state.

The fire also destroyed palm kernels worth over N170 million, refined and unrefined oil, and a Sienna bus.

The executive director of the industry, Emmanuel Alinchi, told The Nation that he noticed the fire and smoke around 1:17 am.

According to him, by the time the fire service arrived, the entire structure had been engulfed.

He appealed to the state government for intervention, emphasizing that all the extracting machines in the industry were destroyed by the fire.

A relation of the victim, Hillary Alinchi said the cause of the fire incident was not known as it happened in the night.

He emphasised that the fire would have spread to other private buildings in the area if not for the resilience of the fire fighters who arrived early.

He said: “The Palm kernel alone are more than N170m. Then you have the refined and unrefined oil, the building and even a Toyota Sienna that were all destroyed. The machines wee all burnt. If you add the machines and building and other things burnt it will be close to N500m.”

He said about fifty workers had lost their jobs as a result of the inferno and appealed to Governor Francis Nwifuru to invoke the spirit of People’s Charter of Needs to resuscitate the industry.

The Director, State Fire Service, Raphael Ibiam, said his team arrived on time but decried that the industry was jam packed with combustible materials.

He, however, pointed out that no life was lost in the incident.