A late afternoon fire of unknown origin that consumed a home at Block 22, Wismar, Linden on July 9 has left a family of five homeless and destroyed all their belongings.
The burn-out home
The owner of the destroyed wooden structure, Pauline Thom-Francis, told Guyana Times International that she and her family were at church when the fire struck. She added that she doesn’t know how the fire started, but she is sure the flame in the kerosene stove the family used was put out before she left for church, as she checked it herself. The home does not have electricity connection, so an electrical trigger to the fire has been ruled out.
“For a lil’ house, it had every little thing. Is only last week Friday my husband bring home a computer for them children; all da gone, cause we seh we would buy them thing and put down till we get the light,” the woman declared. The house was given to the family last year by the Seventh-day Adventist church they attend, but the family had been occupying the plot for some 17 years in what Francis called a makeshift home.
“When I hear about the fire I was in church; it was lil’ after three. I just prayed and then came home,” she added.
Questioned on her next move, she said she is uncertain of that, but is sure that her neighbours would not turn her away. She added that they are all witnesses to her struggle to make her children comfortable. The mother of eight stated that her five girls, aged 18, 13, 12, eight and six, who live with her, will be heartbroken since all their school reports and other school materials have been destroyed.
Shortly after making that statement, one of the woman’s daughters broke down and wailed for her school books, as she will soon be writing exams. She was consoled by neighbours.
The patriarch of the home, her husband Kester, said that he had returned from church, changed his clothes and left. Shortly after, he was told that his home was on fire, and he rushed home in utter disbelief to find the structure burnt to the ground. He had no idea what could have caused the fire.
At the scene were two fire tenders, but, according to the woman’s husband, they were not effective in putting the fire out, as the rain was able to control the blaze. A fire investigator was examining the gutted remains of the home to ascertain the cause of the fire.
The family’s next door neighbour, Claudette Henry, told Guyana Times International that she was making icicles in her home when she smelt something burning, so she checked in her home but found nothing, and was heading to her back door when she felt a heat. She then looked over at the neighbour’s house and saw black smoke emanating from it. The woman said she was worried that the children might be in the home, but she remembered that they are Seventh-day Adventists and were therefore at church, so she sighed with relief.
The family said that they will try to rebuild their home, and they are thankful for any support that anyone will render.
