For over two hours, the fire on the House on the Rock, less than than three hundred meters from the city gate on the Umaru Musa Yar”Adua Way, raged.
The heavy Abuja rains could not put the fire that was being fed by the equally heavy wind.
It took seven parked fire engines (as at 4.40 p.m.) to put out the fire. It was the arrival of one from one of Abuja’s construction giants that was the beginning of the end for the fire.
However, more water was still been pumped into the affected building at 5.00 p.m. to put out any residue as smoke billowed from different sections of the affected building in the huge complex.
Some Christians, may be members, sang nearby on the Airport Expressway, (officially renamed after late Yar’Adua), as the fire burnt the roof and parts of the interior.
Effectively, the huge tongues of fire went out, leaving a mangled maze of steel bars and burnt out roofs, for a fire which source was unknown at press time. The affected building continued to smoulder until 8.00 p.m.
Earlier, a passerby was seen in his own rage as he poured invectives on government agencies, screaming that there was no ladder to take fire fighters to the floor with flames.
He told those who cared to listen that the hoses lacked the pressure to take water to the affected floor.
“What is happening in this country? No ladder! No ladder!!! What is this? Why are we like this? There is no pressure in that hose.”
His frustration was that a fire engine emptied its water through hoses that could not pump water upward enough to reach the floor where the actual fire was.
For onlookers, many with cars parked, some with smart phones clicking away shots; they watched the raging fire, which some claim had been on for nearly three hours.
Others driving in from the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport stopped to catch a glimpse, while others drove slowly past.
Curiously, in the stadium complex, just next door to the burning church complex are eight abandoned fire trucks at various stages of disrepair.
Onlookers threw many questions into the air, some bordering on fire safety measures in the beautiful complex; others on the spiritual.