A lit mosquito coil is being blamed for an early morning fire on Saturday in which at least eight shops were gutted at Gondamara Bazar in Banskhali upazila.
No casualties were reported in the incident, said local administration sources.
Mohammad Arif Ullah, union parishad chairman of Gondamara union, said the fire originated from a mosquito coil in a cosmetics shop owned by Abdur Rahim.
The fire broke out around 3am and engulfed the adjoining seven shops in the market.
Locals took two hours to douse the flames, he added.
The chairman said there is no fire station in the upazila so locals had to fight the flames by themselves.
Jashim Uddin, deputy assistant director of the Fire Service and Civil Defence Headquarters in Chittagong, said they had received no information in this regard.
Valuables worth about Tk2m were lost in the fire, the chairman said.
