Property of unknown value was reduced to ashes when fire broke out in one of the dormitories in Gitweku Girls Secondary School in Kangema.
The fire reportedly broke out at around 4:00 am while the students were still asleep.
The cooks in the kitchen which is few metres away are said to be the ones who saw the fire flames and alerted the administration.
The students and the neighbouring community tried to put it off to no avail.
According to the County Disaster Management officer Bilha Wanjiku, the dormitory was housing 74 students whose personal property was reduced to ashes.
She said the fire brigade team arrived an hour later and managed to control the fire to stop it from spreading to other nearby facilities.
She however said the school administration was to blame for failing to report the incident in time. “The school has a history of fire incidents and that they have the emergency number to alert us in case of such incident,” she said.
Murang’a County Commissioner Fredrick Ndunga said preliminary investigations indicate the fire was caused by an electric fault but that a deeper probe will be done.
He said officers from the DCI and Kenya Power shall work together to establish the cause of the fire.
Efforts to reach out to the school principal were futile.
