Rita Marley's house burn down (Spread)

Some sympathisers of Rita Marley salvaging some of the  musical instruments from being destroyed by the

fire

A Fierce fire has reduced the Aburi-Gyankama music recording studio and residence of Mrs Rita Marley, the wife of the legendary reggae music icon, Bob Marley, into a pile of rubble.

There were no casualties.

It took personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) more than four hours to bring the fire, which began at 6 p.m. on Saturday, under control.
Even though the immediate cause of the fire could not be ascertained, some sources blamed it on electrical fault.

An eyewitness who gave his name as Emmanuel Sackey said he was with Mrs Marley, after some people had been there to interview her, when the fire started from the main studio.

"We managed to put it out with water but later realised that the room was filled with smoke and so we rushed to the office of the fire service at Mampong," he said.

Mr Sackey said it took more than two trips to the offices of the GNFS at Mampong for the personnel there to respond and when they arrived on the scene, they could do very little and had to call for reinforcement from the Madina Fire Station.

When the Daily Graphic got to the scene, dozens of people, including some Rastafarians and residents of the area, stood helpless as the inferno devoured the building.

Efforts by the fire officers to spray the top of the building from their fire engines were fruitless, as the engines could not reach that far.

A few of the workers at the studio mustered courage and entered some of the rooms to salvage what was left of the studio and residence.

Some young men who came under the pretext of helping to help pack the items rather looted them.

It took the intervention of some of the fire service officers to cordon off the premises, allowing only persons with some form of identification to enter the building.

As the inferno raged on, with no end in sight, some agitated young men in the area threatened to deal with the firemen if they (firemen) were not able to put out the fire.

Calm returned to the place when some of the Rastafarians intervened, advising the youth to rather use their energies to support the fire officers.

The officers at the scene declined to comment, saying, "We are not speak to you because we do not know what exactly caused the fire."

According to available information, the multi-million-dollar studio, which is also the storehouse of most of Bob Marley's original tapes, was due for inauguration late last year but the event had to be postponed to allow Mrs Marley to attend to some personal issues in the USA.