A 40-year-old man was burnt to death in a fire incident that gutted his semi-permanent house in Mûûru village of Kirinyaga Central constituency, Kirinyaga county.
According to Kirinyaga county fire department official John Kiama, the fire started at around 5:00 am on Sunday, January 16, 2022.
The body of the deceased was taken to Kerugoya Level 4 Hospital awaiting postmortem and burial.
The deceased, identified as John Muthii was reportedly in deep sleep when the fire broke out and engulfed his house.
"The fire appears to have started in his bedroom and it seems like he woke up but did not manage to walk out of the house," Kiama said.
Kiama said that they suspect that the fire broke out as a result of an electrical fault noting that the ones used in the house were of very poor quality.
"Cables used for wiring this house appears to be of very low quality and we suspect that they are the cause of the fire," he said.
This is the second fire incident to happen in this village in a span of one week.
On Sunday, January 9, 2022, another semipermanent house was burnt to ashes following an electricity fault.
However, no one was injured during that incident.
"The cause of the fire was established to be an electrical fault following the use of low-quality cables for wiring," Kiama noted.
