Close to 90 persons, many of them children, are homeless after a Monday afternoon fire destroyed a dilapidated two-storey building at the corner of Barrack and High Streets, Kingston, which had been condemned by the Guyana Fire Service more than five years ago.
Reports have since indicated that the fire erupted at around 13:30h in the kitchen of one of the residents at the top flat of the building; and it quickly spread, causing everyone to evacuate the building, abandoning all their belongings, which amounted to millions of dollars. The building had housed several families, and was divided into some sixteen apartments, inclusive of a kitchen and a bedroom for each one.
When Guyana Times International arrived on the scene, persons were screaming and crying as they watched the fire consume the place they called home. Firefighters were busy working to extinguish the fire, which blazed profusely. Fire fighters were working feverishly to save the adjacent buildings.
Numerous passersby stopped to view the inferno, while others who were not at home at the time when the fire started turned up only to see everything they owned being destroyed.
Declared a fire hazard
Three occupants of the house consoling each other while the fire raged
Chief Fire Officer Marlon Gentle, speaking with reporters, said the building had been declared a fire hazard over five years ago, but the Georgetown Mayor and City Council was unable since then to get the occupants out of the house. He said the fire service responded promptly to the blaze and the servicemen tried their best to put out the fire, but because of the state of the building, it was easily consumed.
A resident in one of the bottom-flat apartments, Patricia Cornell, could not contain her tears when she told this newspaper that she has nowhere to rest her head.
A tearful Cornell explained that the fire started in a kitchen at the top flat of the building, but by the time others reached to assist in outing it, the kitchen was already destroyed. She stated that the fire quickly spread to other residents’ apartments. “The building is old, so you can imagine what took place. I wasn’t able to save anything,” she said.
Cornell lives with her one-year-old baby and six other children. She said it took her two years to accumulate all the furniture she had lost in the fire. The woman said she is upset with the resident for being so careless and creating such a disaster for everyone who shared the building. Cornell stood barefooted, head tied with a napkin, as she held a bottle of baby feed in her hand and told of her losses.
Residents are claiming that the fire started in the kitchen of Samantha Harris. She was reportedly in her bedroom getting ready to go out when the alarm was raised. One young man noted that he was in the yard when a female guard pointed out that smoke was emanating from the upper flat of the building. He immediately ran upstairs to the neighbour’s kitchen, but the door was padlocked. He then called the woman from her room but she took some time getting the keys to open the door. As soon as the door was opened, flames and thick black smoke billowed from the door. The fire then spread quickly throughout the building.
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