–losses estimated at $10M
RAGING fire yesterday destroyed a five-bedroom, two-flat building at Lot 37 William Street, Kitty, leaving 10 persons homeless and some $10 million in destruction in its wake.
No one was killed or seriously injured during the ordeal, but both flats of the building were completely damaged when the roof caved in and fire spread to the bottom flat. Now homeless are Nellie Charles, known as “Granny”, a 1970s Parliamentarian of the People’s National Congress Party, who is now visually impaired; her children Lennox and Donna Charles; and grandchildren Jerain, Jamal, Stephan, Floyd and Shawn Humphrey, and two others.
Nicole Adams, a neighbour whose home was also severely damaged by the fire, spoke to the media.
“Just I bank the passageway, I hear, ‘Fire!’ When I look up, I saw fire and smoke coming out the back room of the house,” the breathless woman said.
Upon seeing the situation, the woman claimed, she started screaming for assistance from other neighbours, and then she heard “Granny” screaming for help. Adams said she then ran out to render assistance to the elderly woman, and then saw “Granny” trying her best to walk down the stairway of the house unsupported.
The woman said the fire then spread towards the electrical wires, which started sparking, causing her to run into her house to switch off all the electrical appliances.
The neighbours formed a bucket brigade but to no avail, as the fire had become too intense.
The woman opined that the fire could have been contained to one room had the Guyana Fire Service responded promptly; instead, the fire truck took approximately 45 minutes to arrive on scene.
The Nellie Charles family is said to own a dredge in Region 7, Cuyuni/Mazaruni.
Household member Lennox Charles claims he had just left the house, and was waiting on a bus on the road when a neighbour told him that thick smoke was issuing from his house. He said he immediately sped home, where he saw a part of the house on fire.
The maid, who was already outside, told him that the children had probably started the fire, as they had a habit of playing with matches. He said he refused to believe this, and ran into the house to see who could be saved.
Police and fire investigators are working on the theory that the fire may have been started by the children playing with matches in the rear bedroom of the house.
Meanwhile the house of Nicole Adams suffered intense damage from the heat generated by the burning building next door.
Adams was overwhelmed, and took this publication into her home to show the damage done by the fire. Her house was nearest to the burning building.
The intense heat exploded Adams’s windows, scorched her walls, and singed curtains among other decorations in her home.