Triumph fire leaves cancer patient, children homeless

A single mother of three children who is currently in hospital battling cancer is now homeless after her Triumph, East Coast Demerara (ECD) home suddenly went up in flames on Friday morning.

Thirty-seven-year-old Polly Dowkaran of Lot 106 Agriculture Road, Triumph, ECD, and her three minor children, including a two-month-old baby, are left to make alternative living arrangements.
Neighbours of the family told Guyana Times the fire started at about 08:00h and no one was at home at the time.
According to reports, a neighbour who resides on the southern side of Dowkaran was exiting her home to empty garbage when she saw smoke billowing from the one storey wooden property and immediately raised an alarm.
The fire service was quickly called and firefighters managed to contain the blaze to the one location. However, by that time, nothing could have been saved.
“The response from the fire service was good, I must commend them but the house was very old so it burned quite fast… only problem was the house behind got a little damaged,” a neighbour reported.
Guyana Times was told that an elderly man who occupies the a building aback Dowkaran’s had to be rushed to hospital with burns about his body.
“The old man, he house get scorch up and like he was trying to come out but he get burn,” the woman relayed.
The man, identified only as “Sundar” was reportedly unable to escape the heat in time.
When this newspaper visited the scene, the man was returning from hospital with bandages wrapped around his upper chest and back.
His relatives who were escorting him declined to comment. The fire is suspected to have been electrical in origin. The incident is however being investigated.