RAMDEO Kuarpaul, a driver attached to the Ministry of Public Health, is being hailed a hero by his colleagues for saving the ministry from going up in flames early Saturday morning.
Public Relations Officer, Terrence Esseboom, said the fire broke out at around 06:00hrs in an external washroom at the ministry’s compound on Brickdam.

“What I understand is that they left on an extractor fan and it overheated,” Esseboom told the Guyana Chronicle in an invited comment.
The fire was contained because of the swift response of Kuarpal, who was at the time uplifting the key to one of the ministry’s vehicles when he saw smoke emanating from the building.

According to reports, Kuarpal alerted a security guard and together they rushed to find the source of the fire, which turned out to be a fan above the washroom door.
The men acted quickly, and managed to extinguish the fire before the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) could have arrived on the scene. The GFS has since launched an investigation into the matter.

This was not the first time that a fire broke out at the ministry. In 2009, almost the entire building was destroyed by a fire.