A fire incident has devastated 19 shops, which contained 1,900 bags of assorted grains, in Gombi, the headquarters of Gombi Local Government Area of Adamawa State.

The incident occurred at a major grain market in the town, which lies in the northern part of the state.

The Secretary of Gombi Market Union, Mallam Umar Nyalli, said Saturday that the fire which spread to cause havoc was ignited by an unknown smoker who threw a burning stick of cigarette at a heap of waste materials close to the shops.

Nyalli said the businesses of owners of the affected shops had now been paralysed.

“We lost bags of maize, groundnuts, guinea corn, sesame seeds, beans and tamarin fruits to the inferno,” Nyali said, calling on the government at all levels to intervene.

The state Deputy Governor, Professor Kaletapwa George Farauta, has commiserated with the traders whose goods were destroyed.

During a visit to the place Saturday afternoon, she described the incident as a collosal loss to the shop owners and great damage to the entire state in terms of revenue drive.

DAILY POST reports that the fire incident in Gombi comes only about two weeks after a wildfire outside the premises of the Federal College of Education in the state capital, Yola.

The Yola incident destroyed 10 shops.