Moi Girls Eldoret school fire was caused by lab chemicals, police say
A building at Moi Girls High School Eldoret which hosts laboratories going up in flames on the night of May 19, 2022. No one was injured in the incident.
Combustible chemicals are likely to have caused the Thursday night fire that consumed three laboratories at Moi Girls High School Eldoret, the police have said in preliminary findings.
Uasin Gishu County Police County Police Commander Ayub Gitonga said the findings show that the fire was likely caused by a chemical reaction.
“Investigations are ongoing and we will get a conclusive report in the course of this week. However, we suspect that the fire was caused by chemicals that could have ignited the fire,” Mr Gitonga told the Nation.
Sources said the school had endured power outages for the better part of the day.
Property of an unknown value was destroyed in the fire that started at around 11pm and gutted three laboratories and a chemicals store.
It took the efforts of a team of Uasin Gishu County firefighters to extinguish the blaze that emitted massive white smoke as it consumed a section of the two-storey building.
The damaged labs are on the upper floor of the building. The ground floor labs and offices were not affected.
On Thursday night, panicked parents in Eldoret and its environs rushed to the school to check whether their children were safe.
Ainabkoi sub-county Assistant County Commissioner Charles Laboso said no one was hurt in the incident.
