FOLLOWING last Friday’s fire which broke out in the condemned Bourda Cemetery, and seriously threatened nearby buildings, including the South Road Nursery School and Day Care Centre and the Dorothy Bailey Health Centre, traumatised parents and staff at those institutions are calling for an investigation into what they perceive to be “an unfortunate response” by the fire department (GFS) when the fire was reported.

They are peeved that, with so many children being in those buildings, the matter had not been handled more sensitively and efficiently. Instead, the children, some of whom are asthmatic, had to endure the effects of the thick smoke emanating from a graveyard that is known to have accommodated cholera cases.
They are adamant that when a senior staff, working at the facility for more than 20 years, spoke out on behalf of the hapless infants, a fireman snapped at her, ordering her to “Shut your mouth!”
“I told him I had to speak for my rights, because my concerns being voiced were on behalf of the little children, some of whom are asthmatic,” the woman said.
Staffers at the Day Care Centre contend that they had alerted the Guyana Fire Service to the perilous situation since approximately 13:45 hrs, when they observed the fire in the graveyard getting out of control; and that it was an inordinately long time before the first GFS unit arrived on the scene.
“When they did arrive, they tried to contain the fire in the centre of the cemetery out there, with the result that the fire closer to the municipal buildings started to get uncontrollable; but before they could get to us, the water ran out, and that was about it,” a still nervous staff member at the Day Care Centre recalled.
As the thick smoke continued billowing in the atmosphere, and the fire moved towards the Day Care Centre and the Nursery School,

Arriving on scene with an empty fire tender, firemen used buckets of water given them by huckster women to fight the fire under the windows of the Day Care Centre.

the staff hurriedly evacuated the infants, who by then were at serious risk of smoke inhalation.
They huddled in the south eastern corner of the yard, under supervision of Day Care nurses and teachers, until parents were able to get them.

Crying infants and toddlers being evacuated from the Day Care Centre.

For some inexplicable reason, the second GFS unit did not arrive to fight the fire until approximately 15:00 hrs; and the Sunday Chronicle reporter who was en route to cover a funeral at the nearby South Road Full Gospel Church could attest to this fact. That reporter impulsively diverted her attention to the scene of the fire.
Once parked on South Road, outside the municipal building, the new crew of firefighters went to source water from the Croal Street canal before they were able to start fighting the fire.
The fire threatening the Day Care centre, nursery school and health centre was hitherto kept at bay mainly by two public-spirited male volunteers, who risked their lives scaling the fence to confront the pockets of fire and thick smoke moving swiftly towards the building, by using buckets of water provided by nurses and other staff to fight the fire.  Those two volunteers also sourced water from tanks on premises of the Guyana Business Coalition for HIV/AIDS (GBCHA) compound – which was also threatened by the fire. They were eventually joined by a few young firemen from the first unit, who also put up a courageous fight against the fire.
A third unit of the GFS arrived at around 15:20hrs and parked on Bourda Street, where terrified young clothes vending businessmen and women were running helter skelter, fetching  buckets of water from a yard on the opposite side of the road to douse flames, which by then were literally about six feet away from the shops.
Ironically, the GFS made entirely no effort to help the citizens save their boutiques, until this newspaper drew the predicament to the attention of a senior fire official who was just getting out of a vehicle. Ranks were then deployed with a hose to extinguish the pockets of fire.
This newspaper asked a senior fire official on the scene for a comment on the claims made earlier by staff at the centres and residents living nearby.  His response was that the fire department, at all times, respond promptly to calls reporting fires. He said he would first have to view the record of the calls received and dispatches made on that afternoon before being able to comment further.
He also explained that each fire tender has only a 400-gallon water capacity, and when that is used up, it becomes necessary for a tender to source water from elsewhere.
He was, nevertheless, unable to comment on why the second firefighting crew had to source water from the South Road canal before beginning to fight the fire, at around 15:00hrs.
Meanwhile, parents and guardians of children at the nursery school and Day Care centre deemed it pathetic, that whenever unfortunate incidents happen in that vicinity, the innocent children have to suffer.
They recalled occasions when police ranks used tear smoke to disperse protesters along Regent Street a few years ago, that it seriously impaired the health of the hapless infants and toddlers.
Noting that there were claims of fires having been started in the same cemetery on Tuesday and again in the early morning of Friday, residents are calling on the Fire Department to be vigilant, and whip up their firefighting capabilities in the event that bush fires should start up, or ‘junkies’ suddenly set fire in the cemetery again without notice.