Odessa Alves had just brought her children home from lessons on Wednesday evening when calamity struck in the form of a fire that erupted at the Charlestown, Georgetown house she shared with 14 other relatives.
On Thursday morning, when all that remained of the three-storey wooden-and-concrete structure at Lot 33 Lyng and Howes Street, Charlestown was rubble, Alves shared with Guyana Times that, in a matter of minutes, the entire edifice was engulfed in thick smoke.
Aftermath of the Charlestown fire
The woman said she was standing at the door speaking with a friend at about 18:00h on that fateful Wednesday when her son first drew her attention to fire emanating from the top storey of the house. The mother of four said she sprinted up the stairs with two buckets of water, but those proved futile in dousing the flames.
Realising that the fire was spreading rapidly, persons called on her to abandon the building and rush to safety. And she made one final attempt to throw some valuables out the window, but even this was pointless.
“My son come at the verandah and holler, ‘Mommy! Fire! Fire!’. When I run up the back step, I run to the top (third flat) with two buckets of water. But the fire had already blazed up in the middle room upstairs. When I run and throw the first bucket of water, the smoke and the fire hit me and throw me back. I couldn’t do anything…The fire happen so fast!” she detailed.
“I meet at the window to throw stuff out the window, but I couldn’t throw nothing. A guy tell me, ‘Come out the house!’ and I run down from the back,” she recalled. The 42-year-old fire victim told this publication that, within a split second, the flames spread out of control.
It has been reported that fifteen firefighters, six EMTs, three water tenders, and three ambulances from the Central, Alberttown, and West Ruimveldt Fire Stations immediately responded to the scene. However, according to Alves, had the Fire Service had more water, the building could have been saved.
She shared, “…two spray and the water finish. The next truck take another half-hour to meet.”
Another resident, Tito Gilkes, also shared his disappointment, since a fire hydrant was located just outside the property. He contended, “I passed one fire truck this way, another on Sussex Street, one on Broad Street, and nobody ain’t spraying water. Everybody just busy, and you ain’t seeing water. When it start with the bottom, a fire truck come from Howes Street and then started spraying water. We don’t know what’s the SOPs and why they didn’t have water, or what happen. But a fire hydrant was right in front. When they came, only the top was on fire; they could have saved how much things.”
Losses
The former occupants of this building are claiming that nothing was saved; that all 15 occupants have been rendered homeless, and losses suffered are in the millions. The bottom flat of this building had housed a warehouse in which were stored party supplies for the family’s business. A vehicle has also been damaged.
“Everything we lost! Everything I lost! It was real stuff: the house was furnished, we had a bond with stuff, party service stuff, trampoline, bouncy castle, pool,” Alves added.
Owner of the property, Hazen Alves-Scott, has said she received a dreadful call when she was in Itaballi, Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) that her home was devastated by fire. One day prior, they were experiencing power outages which destroyed a refrigerator. Those outages had continued into Wednesday. However, the Guyana Fire Service is yet to determine the cause of the fire.
“They said they had an on-and-off blackout…When I come, everything was gone. Nothing we don’t have,” the owner lamented. (G12)
