A two-year-old and a three-month-old are among nine persons homeless after a fire of unknown origin blazed through their Lot 11 Beau Voisin, Canal Number One, West Bank Demerara (WBD) home on Wednesday afternoon.
Shivonne Brisport
Based on information, the fire started just about 14:45h in the upper flat of the wooden structure, which housed four families.
According to the Guyana Fire Service, it received a call just before 15:00h about the fire. Firefighters from the La Grange Fire Station were dispatched to the scene and were able to contain the blaze. However, they were unable to save the house, because the fire quickly ripped through the aging wooden structure.
One of the occupants, Alexis Daniels said she saw smoke emanating from the upper flat of the building and raised an alarm.
“So I came outside to get some water to rinse the mug and I look upstairs and I see smoke, but I thought my cousin was upstairs and I keep shouting for he, but he wasn’t answering and when I decided to go upstairs and when I open the door, there was the fire coming from the middle bedroom. So, by the time I run downstairs to call for help and by the time they go upstairs, it already in flames,” she said.
Daniels related that she was unable to save anything from her bottom-flat apartment which she shared with her boyfriend and two-year-old son. The woman is contemplating her next move now that she has to start all over again.
“I don’t know what I will do for now, but I gotta get a shelter over my head. I am going to stay by my sister up the road for now. We will have to see how we can pick up from this, but it is hard for me now, because we lost everything in that fire,” Daniels stated.
She added that she only moved there just about one year ago.
The ruins of the house
Meanwhile, Shivonne Brisport –- one of the six persons living in the upper flat of the house – told Guyana Times that she was not at home when the fire started.
“I wasn’t home. I was over at my cousin Sheriann in Dairy (Parfaite Harmonie) and I get a call telling me to come home now. She (my cousin) left to come to work and I was with she daughter, my daughter, and my next lil’ cousin and I get a call from her and she tell me ‘come now, come now because the house deh pon fire’. I catch something and come out and by the time I reach there, everything was done in blaze, house fall down, and the Fire Service here,” she reported.
Brisport explained that she had been living there with her brother, uncle and their partners along with her three-month-old daughter for over seven years now. The woman is at a loss as to what may have caused the fire, but noted that the house had no electrical issue.
The Fire Service has since launched an investigation to determine the origin of the fire, among other things. (G2)
