-leaves family of four homeless
A FIRE of unknown origins yesterday evening gutted a two-storey house located at Lot 56 Area ‘G’ Ogle East Coast Demerara, leaving a family of four homeless. When the Chronicle arrived on the scene, neighbours and other persons were seen assisting in removing items from the lower flat of the building in a bid to recover whatever could be saved.
None of the occupants of the house, nor any of the family’s dogs, were hurt during the fire, which is said to have started at around 17:00h in a bedroom located to the western side of the upper flat of the house.
Among those at the scene of the fire were Home Affairs Minister, Mr. Clement Rohee and his team, who were returning by plane to the Ogle International Airport from a visit to Bartica when they saw the blaze.

Vinood Ishwerdin, the owner of the house’s son, told the Chronicle that he and his mother and brother were in the lower flat when they saw smoke seeping in. “When we went upstairs, we saw the flames. The fire spread on the bed first,” he said.

At that point, he said, they left the house. “I drove to Campbellville to get a fire tender, but when I got there, I heard that one had been on the way to the house,” Vinood said. According to the young man, the fire tender arrived some 15 minutes after the fire started, and that although many items were pulled from the lower flat, nothing could be saved from the upstairs.
According to the young man, his mother, Kathleen Rajkumar, is the person in whose name the property is, and that although many of the items had been insured through hire purchase arrangement, the house itself was not covered for insurance.
Residents in the area said that the fire tenders, located a stone’s throw away at the Ogle Airport, should have been mobilized into action, instead of having to wait some 15 minutes for a tender from Georgetown to arrive.