Residents cite electricity in Monday’s Kisii fire

Residents of Kisii believe the fire that broke out causing a huge loss originated from an electrical fault.

The fire is believed to have been caused by an electrical fault in one of the rooms before spreading to other 20 rooms at the Mt Arvena Novitiate Sisters Training Institute.

Property of unknown value was damaged at the institution which is an affiliate of the Franciscan Sisters of St Joseph Asumbi at Kisii South Sub-County.

Riana Location Chief Edward Moenda said that he heard members of the public screaming and sought help.

“I alerted police officers and rushed to the scene for assistance,” said Moenda.

Kisii Police and County Fire Brigade rushed to the scene with the help of the public and were able to contain the fire before it spread to other floors.

Kisii County Police Commander Martin Kibet confirmed no one was injured.

Kibet said that they have launched investigations.

In 1977, an electrical fault in the telephone system at the original African Heritage House in Nairobi sparked an inferno that swept through the entire gallery, all its workshops and stores, the restaurant and the garden cafe. Only two art pieces of note were saved from the one-of-a-kind gallery operated by former Vice President Joseph Murumbi and American designer Alan Donovan. According to Donovan, the value of the art that was reduced to ashes is incalculable, but the damage it did to the preservation of African culture was even greater.

Murumbi and Donovan met in 1971 at one of the latters exhibitions in Nairobi. The brief haggling over a fertility mask began a lifelong partnership to preserve Pan-African art. This eventually culminated in the building of the first Pan-African Gallery in Africa, the African Heritage House at the junction of Koinange Street and Kenyatta Avenue. The building was opened in January 1973 and had only been open for four years when a fire reduced its priceless collections made over decades to nothing but ashes.

For its founders, the fire was a chance at rebirth and they moved the gallery to the nearby Hughes Building owned by Edith Hughes on Kenyatta Avenue as the burnt house was rebuilt. Once complete the African Heritage house moved back to its old location. It stayed there for another two decades until 1997 when it was demolished to set up what is today the iconic blue I & M building. Donovan moved it to Mlolongo where it has been since but the new one was marked for demolition until it was gazetted as a national monument in early 2015. Another fire that burnt priceless documents was the City Hall fire disaster of 2004 that cleared the entire third floor. The damage was estimated at KShs. 70 million.

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