TEN persons are now homeless following an early morning fire at their two-storey concrete house in Den Amstel, West Coast Demerara. It started shortly after 03:00 hrs and quickly engulfed the entire building, said Debra Roberts, the mother of five who also lived in it.
She said she was asleep in her bedroom and was awakened by one of her daughters.
“My daughter called me and, by the time I ran out of the bedroom, the whole house was up in flames,” the woman said.
She told the Guyana Chronicle that her son, in his attempt to put out the blaze, threw a bucket of water but that only added to the catastrophe.
“When he threw this water, you would believe it was a bucket of gasolene… the flames just became bigger,” the frustrated woman related.
According to her, the origin was in the middle bedroom.
She said her two sons were in one bedroom, one daughter and two grandchildren in a third and another grand and one more daughter elsewhere.
Roberts said efforts by friends and family, to contact the Guyana Fire Service (GFS), proved futile and they were unable to save any of their belongings.
She said her neighbour, Gillian McPherson made several calls, two of which were answered and the report was taken. However, as time passed, none of the authorities responded at the scene.
“My neighbour called four times and we didn’t get any response. When we ran over there, somebody called my brother-in-law and he spoke to a friend but, when the fireman came, he said he was alerted on his cell phone. No report was made to them from the base and, by the time they reached here, everything was gone,” Roberts lamented.
She said she will be staying at her neighbour`s home until she is in a position to rebuild.
“It will take me a while before we can do anything,” she pointed out, adding that the children did not get to go to school because “everything burn up.”
Roberts said: “I believe if the Fire Service had come on time, we could have saved some things. When they do reach here now, they didn’t have any water, they had to go to a nearby trench and, when that wasn’t enough, the firemen had to find another source to quench the blaze.”
The woman told this publication she had been residing at the Lot 26 Public Road, Den Amstel address for approximately 20 years.
None of the occupants were injured by the conflagration but how it originated was still unknown, as investigations were continuing up to press time.
The family is appealing for any assistance from the general public and can be contacted on telephone number 276-3550.