A fire has devastated a furniture bond and a dwelling house at Lot 61 West Canefield, East Canje Berbice in the late hours of Wednesday evening; and in the process, has left at least seven persons homeless.
The owner of the establishment, Deodat Kikchand, was asleep when the fire was initially detected at about 22:00h, but was awakened by his sister with the dreadful news. Neighbours formed a bucket brigade in efforts to put out the blaze, but combustible materials saved in the bond facilitated the rapid spread of the fire with its concomitant immense heat. And even though the Fire Service was contacted as soon as the blaze was detected, it reportedly arrived a while later, and had several challenges to source water.
The building was completely engulfed on Wednesday evening
Kikchand related that, prior to this fire, his neighbours were burning garbage close to his fence, and he believes that fire might have spread onto his property.
The fire destroyed the front building in which he and 6 other family members resided. The lower flat of that building had been used to store equipment and some stock. The back building had been used as a furniture bond; it was where the 52-year-old businessman had been operating the furniture business for the past 32 years.
Kikchand told Guyana Times he had stocked up materials to fulfil a number of orders that he had taken for the upcoming holiday season. He related that the bond had about 30 vanity dressers, more than 15 wardrobes, and several pieces of equipment, some of which he had recently purchased and had not put into use as yet. All these were destroyed in the fire.
Kikchand said he had not been supplying furniture to any particular business place, people would come directly to his establishment to order. “It was like a store, people come and say what they want, and we make it,” he explained.
“Me bin get a lot of furniture at the back. The whole place was full with furniture. Since yesterday [Wednesday] I had planned to move them to the bond…but things happened,” the sobbing man explained.
Kikchand explained that he would have to restart his business from scratch. “I got to start back fresh, I can’t do anything about it. I have to see what I can do, because this is what I depend on,” he explained. Nothing in his business had been insured, including the buildings and equipment.
The Guyana Fire Service is investigating the cause and origin of this fire. (Andrew Carmichael)
