Asawase fire: NADMO stops victims from rebuilding burnt homes
Barely hours after fire tore through a cluster of makeshift homes at Asawase in Kumasi, the affected residents have begun erecting structures to rebuild their lost homes.
A fire gutted hundreds of makeshift homes at Asawase in Kumasi on Thursday, August 27, 2026, leaving residents displaced. The Ghana National Fire Service managed to contain the blaze, which destroyed about 300 wooden structures. The community, predominantly young parents and their children, had migrated from northern Ghana in search of economic opportunities, with the wooden homes being their only shelter in the city.
Despite the urgency, NADMO has halted reconstruction efforts. The Directorate's Director of Operations, Faruk Gariba, deemed the rebuilding "unauthorized and premature," stating that they had not yet visited the site nor made a decision on whether reconstruction should proceed. The cause of the fire is currently unknown, though it is speculated that it might have started when a heater plugged into a socket was used to boil water.
NADMO has warned that any rebuilding without proper authorization contravenes the assembly's regulations.
Written by urgent.news from MyJoyOnline Ghana's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
