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Remember Deketeke Herald Correspondent
THE warehouse of leading manufacturer of clothing, Paramount Archer, in Southerton, Harare, was engulfed by fire on Monday, leading to the destruction of all clothing materials in stock.
The raging fire was still being fought by Harare Fire Brigade yesterday afternoon.
Paramount Garments is the leading manufacturer of high quality, affordable clothing in Zimbabwe, from school uniforms and work wear to casual clothing.
Causes of the fire still remain unknown, with investigations expected to be intensified once the fire brigade had extinguished the blaze.
While details were not available yesterday, it appears all stock of materials used in manufacture were destroyed.
While there is no official comment, it is difficult to extinguish tightly packed stocks of flammable materials, such as cloth, since often each layer has to be removed and extinguished before the next is tackled.
One of the workers, who preferred anonymity said the fire could have started in the early hours of Monday morning.
“The fire was discovered on Monday morning when we started work, we only saw smoke in the morning. We tried removing boxes and clothes but all was in vain, we were only seeing smoke in the warehouse,” he said.
“We continued trying until the management said we could now retire for the day on Monday around noon.”
He suggested that the fire might have been caused by electric cables.
“I think it was electric cables that were burning because the smell of the smoke was neither clothes nor boxes.
“At the moment no one knows and the company is not even communicating with us at the moment. Whatever we are saying are only assumptions,” he said.
The worker said despite efforts to douse the fire, it never stopped.
“From Monday the Fire Brigade and other firefighting companies were coming but nothing seemed to change. We started seeing the fire yesterday but today it became worse despite the Fire Brigade bringing in more than three fire tenderd,” he said.
“So the room that is burning is a warehouse that has clothes worth over US$1 million.
“This warehouse is where all the clothing material is stored first before going anywhere.”
A vendor operating around the company premises, Mr Panashe Muzadzi, said since Tuesday fire brigade vehicles have been coming to douse the blaze but to no avail.
Online Reporter