Woman, 58, perishes in N/A fire caused by overheated fan

An early morning fire that devastated a two-storey home at Lot 21-37 St Magdalene Street, New Amsterdam Berbice on Saturday has led to the demise of 58-year-old Sharron Austin and to seven other family members being rendered homeless.
Austin had reportedly lived in the two-bedroom upper flat of the house with her husband, son and two grandchildren. Her daughter Brenda Johnson, the Sergeant in charge of the Reliance Police Station in East Canje, had occupied the lower flat with two of her children.
The Guyana Fire Service (GFS) at New Amsterdam, upon being informed about the fire, had immediately dispatched water tenders, a water carrier and their respective crews to the location of the fire. Upon their arrival, the firefighters were greeted with the sight of the two-storey, wooden-and-concrete structure being engulfed.

Based on preliminary investigations, the fire resulted from an overheated electrical fan becoming energised as it came into contact with nearby combustible materials, thus causing them to be ignited.
“As a result of the fire, 58-year-old Sharon Austin perished. The ground floor of the building was slightly damaged, while the first floor was severely damaged and the contents were completely destroyed,” the GFS detailed in a statement.

At the scene on Saturday, Johnson recalled hearing stomping in the upper flat of the building, and said she thought it might have been burglars. “So, my sons run out and say, ‘Mommy, like thief upstairs!’, but the two girls were trying to open the door. And then my small daughter said, ‘Fire! Fire!’ and my second son ran upstairs and pulled the two girls down, and they said that their grandmother turned back in the house,” Johnson explained.
At that time, the fire had not reached the door of the burning structure.
“My second son ran back to save mommy, but the fire was too much for him to get to her, and she collapsed right at the entrance of the front door, due to the smoke,” Johnson further detailed.
Thus it was that this 17-year -old lad could not save his grandmother from perishing in the fire.

“The smoke was already coming through the windows. He cuffed the window to break it and jump through and get to her, but the fire was too much!” Johnson further explained.
Obviously in great distress, the Policewoman said all she had managed to save was a chair set, a microwave, and a gas stove; while everything in the upper flat was destroyed by the fire.
She opined that had the Fire Service been more responsive, the destruction would have been less devastating. “Neighbours called the Fire Service, and I called the operators at the station, who also called. I jumped in the car and drove to the Fire Station…When I reached back, they reached after me. They could have saved the house if they (had) responded from the time we called!” she lamented.
“I am living about two minutes away from the Fire Service! The house would not have burnt so much if they had come on time; we would have saved a lot. Everything destroyed!” Johnson lamented.
This building is situated about 300 metres from the New Amsterdam Fire Service.
According to Johnson, her seven-year-old daughter, who had been sleeping in the same bed with her late grandmother, claimed she felt the room was getting hot, and she opened her eyes and was confronted with a ball of fire on the clothes rack. That was how her grandmother and elder sister were alerted to the fire.
“For me, that is my everything gone! Because since I was young, everything I had to do (I did) with my mother, because I did not really have my father playing a role in my life. Everything is mommy; and now, my kids, everything for them is their grandmother. She was jovial and very loving,” a devasted Johnson related (Andrew Carmichael)