A fire early Wednesday morning completely razed a building which was converted into a storage bond at Patentia, West Bank Demerara (WBD). Reports are the fire started at about 06:30h at a Lot 21 East Patentia Housing Scheme building, which was recently converted into a bond. Guyana TimesInternational was told that mostly electronic items and cosmetics were stored in the bond. At the time of the fire, two vehicles were parked in the yard – one of which bore no registration plates. Both vehicles were torched by the fire. This publication understands the building belonged to Roopnarine Satnarine, who is the proprietor of Body Line Beauty World and Price Buster Trading in America Street, Georgetown.
When this publication arrived at the scene, fire service ranks were attempting to contain the blaze while Police investigators were on site gathering information. A next door neighbour, Fredrick Williams, who was shaken by the ordeal, recalled that he was preparing meals just as the event unfolded.
“I was in the kitchen preparing meals when my dog kept barking. When I followed the dog and it go to the side of the building… when I looked across I basically saw smoke across in the nieghbour’s yard and I ran out to the road and alarmed everybody else,” Williams noted.
He told this newspaper that he then contacted the Fire Service which responded quickly and managed to contain the blaze.
Williams, however, suffered some losses as his house was also scorched by the flames.
“The whole one side get torched, a few things burned inside like the curtains and the black [water] tank. My loss is not so great but thank God for the good job of the Fire Service at the end of the day because if they weren’t here, I wouldn’t have a building,” expressed Williams on the verge of tears.
Meanwhile, this newspaper was also informed that Satnarine’s bond was subjected to three robbery attacks prior to Wednesday morning’s fire. Information received also stated that Police recently held three persons in connection with the robberies.
Police and Fire Service investigations are continuing.
