APPROXIMATELY 40 persons are now homeless following a fire in the Hyde Park area at Timehri last evening. The fire has displaced eight families who lived in a seven apartment range house and a building behind it at Second Street, Hilltop, Timehri.
The fire broke out around 20:15hrs, and the first tender from the Timehri Fire Station, about one mile away, arrived some 25 minutes later. This ran out of water, then a second one came and this too ran out of water. It was about 21:45hrs when a third tender arrived, by which time the buildings were all destroyed.
There are no reports of any casualties among those who lived in the buildings.
The homeless include airport taxi drivers and employees of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport just about half a mile from the scene of the fire.
According to a source close to the investigations, the fire started when an unattended candle in Apartment E set the room on fire.
A still shaken Nicole Stuart, occupant of one of the apartments, said at the time of the incident she was inside her quarters reading a book to her children.
“I heard somebody calling and my daughter run out and she come back in and say fire, so I say probably is some little fire, so I go inside the bathroom and we had some water there and I come out with it to out the fire.”
Stuart said when she looked outside, to her surprise; the fire was blazing and spreading, coming in her direction.
“Like from in the bedroom where it start from, and it coming down, so I drop the bucket and I go inside and I tried to get out some things and I pull out whatever was in my reach.”
The woman said in the midst of all the confusion, her main focus was getting the children out of the house, so her efforts to save items in the house were a waste of time and the fire was quickly spreading.
Another resident and school teacher, Amanda Bagenauth , said she was taking a nap in her room when she heard her neighbour screaming out her name.
“She screaming for me and she said, ‘Amanda you see what happening’, and I didn’t know what was going on, I was confused so I ran to the backdoor, I kicked it open cause it wasn’t opening and I ran out.”
An elderly woman, Lilena Verasammy, said that she was preparing dinner for the family when tragedy struck.
“I was about to cook something, and I hear somebody shouting fire and we rush through the front door.”
She said in the midst of everything her husband tried to gather some of the things in the house and he managed to save a television and a few other utensils.”