A Sunday morning fire at lot 94 ‘CC’ Eccles, East Bank Demerara, in the street just before Industrial Site, has devastated a family of four, including two children– a two-year-old toddler and an eight-month-old baby, a mere few days before Christmas day. According to Samuel Ward, who lived in the house, his wife alerted him of a fire after she went into one of the rooms and noticed the breaker box was burning. The fire quickly spread to the ceiling and then throughout the rest of the house.

Neighbours told the Guyana Chronicle that they observed the thick black smoke emanating from the front room of the house around 08:30hrs. One neighbour, Ryan (only name given), said residents of the area attempted to mobilise and tried to control the fire, but it had already engulfed the entire house. It was reported that the fire service responded about 30 minutes later. The family, however, managed to escape unharmed.

When this newspaper spoke to Ward via telephone, on Sunday afternoon, he related that he is still stunned since all of the family’s possessions were lost in the fire. He said the two children were staying with their grandmother while their mother went to purchase some essential items, such as pampers, for them. “We’re just trying to see what we can do now… we lost everything in the house,” Ward lamented. The couple had been renting this space for more than a year now; their landlord lives overseas.