Written by Clifford Stanley and Leroy Smith
LOCAL merchandising giants, M. Beepat and Sons had their three-storey concrete storage bond at Temple Street, Ogle, ECD ravaged by flames yesterday at about 10:30 hrs, in a scene of palpable chaos and confusion as several buildings in the contiguous villages of Ogle and Cummings Lodge caught fire, and hundreds of various commodities were literally reduced to ashes.Employees could only look on in helpless horror as the blaze consumed the contents of the bond and destroyed a neighbouring wooden home, leaving five persons and two rabbits homeless. Several other buildings were scorched and received extensive water damage.

One of the affected occupants of the destroyed home is reportedly due to return shortly from the United States of America.

One man explained that he was in his home when he heard what appeared to be gunshots, but on looking outside, he saw thick smoke coming from the building next to his, the storage bond in the community which has, for years, drawn residents’ concerns about exactly what transpired yesterday.

Reports are that the fire had started in the upper storey of the huge concrete warehouse, and
employees working in the middle storey detected smoke and tried to control the blaze, but had to abandon the building in face of that fiery onslaught.

As the fire raged for over an hour and a half, sending huge columns of dense black smoke spiralling skywards, curious onlookers scurried for cover on several occasions as explosions in the building hurled debris — particularly cans of aerosol spray, such as insect repellent and other small containers — into the air before they came raining down on roof tops and among various sections of the huge crowds which had gathered on several streets to witness the spectacle.

Neighbours immediately west of the two buildings which were well alight experienced some anxious moments when the fire, occasionally fanned by a strong Atlantic breeze, seemed to be raging out of control.

The Guyana Fire Service (GFS) reportedly arrived promptly on the scene, and firefighters were praised for restricting the blaze to the warehouse and the building immediately next door.
A senior fire official told the media that the smoke from the fire was so dense that at first it was virtually impossible for fire fighters to see what they were doing, which prevented the firemen from reaching the house next door to the already fully enflamed bond.

Officials of Beepats and Sons who were at the scene of the fire remained tight-lipped about the extent of the company’s losses, but residents said that the warehouse had been packed with hundreds of millions of dollars in goods.

“Every day you would see three or four twenty-foot containers arriving and being unloaded. It was a very well stocked storage bond, as far as we know,” one resident said.

It has all gone up in flames, and bond workers now face an uncertain future in regard to their jobs.

Jonathan Beepat, present at the scene along with several employees, would not comment on the fire. He would only say that he was not there when the fire started, and as such was unable to offer any comment, including what items were housed in the building, how long the building has been in the residential area, and what was the estimated value of the loss to the company.

Representatives of the insurance company which covers the Beepats chain of businesses were also present at the fire scene yesterday, but declined to comment on the way forward and whether the policies were up to date.