Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has donated Sh1 million to help traders who lost their stocks in yet another fire inferno.
A section of the market went up in flames at around 4am on Wednesday morning, leaving traders counting losses.
The donation was presented to the traders by George Theuri, political and youth affairs advisor at the office of the Deputy President.
Theuri who is former Embakasi West Mp was accompanied by former Starehe Mp Charles Njagua and Ziwani MCA Gerald Irungu.
The Nairobi county fire and disaster team arrived on time and was able to put out the fire that saw 23-year-old Samuel Njuguna sustain injuries.
Njuguna was rushed to Kenyatta National Hospital for treatment.
Gikomba Market, East Africa’s largest open-air market, has experienced unpredictable fires annually.
In October, Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja pledged to set up a fire station at Gikomba market to help deal with recurrent fires.
He also said he will have the land surveyed and title deeds issued saying land grabbers and speculators are some of those behind the fires.
"Gikomba is public land and we will build a wall around it. It belongs to the people of Nairobi. We will defend it to the end from grabbers," he said.
For decades, Gikomba market has been a source of income for many including food vendors, second-hand clothes traders, carpenters, business people, and many more.
However, for many years, they have constantly been in tears, and encountered losses as fire mocked their success by razing down the market.
Gikomba has had its annual fires in the past years 2015, 2018, 2020 and 2021.
Last year on November 28, 2021, as Nairobi was experiencing heavy rainfall, traders were once again crying in pain as commodities of unknown value were destroyed in another mysterious fire.
In February 2021, a mysterious fire visited the open-air market and another one in August.
On April 10, 2019, more than 2,000 structures were razed down as a section of the market was gutted by fire.
In 2018, the market experienced three fire cases. In June, 15 people died and at least 60 injured when a section of the market dealing in timber and clothes was burnt.