– Fire Chief Gentle
CHIEF Fire Officer Marlon Gentle said, yesterday, that the cause of the April 1 conflagration which destroyed the businesses that were housed in the Jaigobin Building on Regent Street, Georgetown, will soon be made known. He told the Guyana Chronicle that, by this weekend, the report on that blaze will be completed, as some analyses are being done to determine how it started.
Early that morning, at Regent and Wellington Streets, Lacytown, flames razed several stores in the Jaigobin Rajkumar complex where several Indian nationals counted their losses in millions of dollars.
The fire moved through Dilip’s Variety Store and scorched Raf’s Variety Store, but left other stores, exclusively owned by Indian nationals and one by a Guyanese, Smart Choice, water soaked.
Those affected,   Dilip’s Akashe, Prakash Discount, Manu’s  and Monty’s were all in the same structure located opposite the GUYOIL Gas Station.
Smart Choice owner was seen yesterday emptying the contents from his water damaged premises as firemen continued to douse the embers, having, previously, successfully contained the inferno.
One storeowner had criticised the GFS for not entering the blazing place to prevent it from total destruction.

NOT ADVISABLE
But the Fire Chief, defending the firefighters, pointed out that the building was heavily grilled and shuttered with quarter inch steel plates and it was not advisable for the firemen to enter since there were visible flames and heavy smoke issuing from it.
“It would not have been safe to commit men into a building with that amount of smoke when you don’t know what was burning or where the fire was coming from. You have to take into account firefighters’ safety when you are doing this kind of operation,” he maintained yesterday.
Gentle noted that the stores stocked flammable merchandise,  such as clothing, perfumes, sprays, aerosols, among others things.
He said firefighters went into action to save the nearby buildings and the police were called out to lend support in crowd control and security.
Vivekenand Gansham, brother of the owner of the Jaigobin building, Vidushi Ramkumar, told reporters a dispute over the property has been in the court for about three years as it was supposed to be “split up” amongst the estimated 12 siblings.
Proprietor of Dilip’s Variety, Dilip Murjani told reporters yesterday that he had been called and told his store was on fire but thought it was an April Fool’s joke.
However, when he arrived there, he realised it was, indeed, ablaze.
Murjani said he had been a tenant at the location for eight years and estimates his losses at just under $20M.