A fire destroyed a plastic goods shop on the Matara–Galle main road on Wednesday afternoon (29), with no casualties reported, police said.
Ada Derana reported that the shop stood in front of a fuel station on the main road and that the premises were completely destroyed in the blaze. Police suspect the fire may have been caused by an electrical fault, though the cause has not been formally confirmed.
The fire was brought under control by the Matara Fire Brigade and Matara Police with the assistance of area residents, according to Ada Derana. Hiru News, which placed the shop in Matara town, reported that two fire engines deployed by the Matara Municipal Council extinguished the blaze and said the cause had not been disclosed.
Police stated that no injuries or deaths have been reported so far.
Stocks of plastic goods burn rapidly and generate dense smoke, and the shop’s position beside a fuel station would have made containment a priority for responding crews. Neither outlet reported any damage to the adjoining filling station.
The incident follows a run of commercial and industrial fires reported across the country in recent weeks, among them a helmet factory fire in the Katuwana Industrial Zone in Homagama on July 21 that killed five workers. The Colombo Fire Service Department reported 258 fire incidents in Colombo and its suburbs between January and late July, against 382 across the whole of last year.
