— over 400 affected after mystery fire guts St. George’s High School

THE St. George’s High School in Georgetown was, on Wednesday, ravished by a fire of unknown origin, displacing some 421 students. St George’s High is the third school to be destroyed by fire in less than two years. In June 2021, North Ruimveldt Multilateral School went up in flames and in September the same year, the Mabaruma Secondary School, Region One, suffered a similar fate.

The fire at St George’s High reportedly started just around 13:30 hours in one section of the building and it quickly engulfed the entire structure.
According to a teacher, who identified herself as Ms. Mathis, who was in the building at the time, she was alerted to smoke emanating from one of the rooms of the building by a cleaner and quickly told her students to gather their belongings and exit the building.

Mathis told reporters that at the time she was having reading sessions with her transition students and they were about to resume the second half of the programme before she was alerted to the smoke.
“I got a call from the cleaner that there is smoke in a room there, the social studies HoD room, and I told everybody immediately to grab everything and get out of the building and so we did just that,” she said, while adding that she and all six of her students escaped unharmed.

Education Minister, Priya Manickchand, who was also on the scene, noted that any functioning school that is destroyed is an extremely big loss. In a later post on her social media, the minister stated that the task will now be to find accommodation for some the 421 students who have been displaced.

This task, she said, will not be an easy one as she further indicated, “But do it, we must.”
“This is a secondary school in the middle of Georgetown; it’s going to affect a large number of persons, it’s extremely saddening to watch… we will have to make sure we cater for these children and quickly,” Manickchand told members of the media.

She added that St. Georges is one school that the ministry had a lot of interest in because of what they could do with the school’s programmes and more.
Based on reports received, the Education Minister added that the security guard at the school related that smoke was seen coming from the front of the building and he quickly contacted persons.
As it relates to where these students could be relocated, Manickchand noted that it would be too early for her to say.

“But I could say with sureness right now that it is unlikely that we would be able to pick up all these students and place them in one location so we probably have to spread them out to different schools.”
Several fire tenders were on the scene as firefighters attempted to quell the blaze; however, the mostly wooden building quickly went up in flames even though the Guyana Fire Service responded to the fire.

Home Affairs Minister, Robeson Benn, who was also on the scene, told reporters that he was pleased with the response of the Fire Service due to their quick response and being able to contain the blaze to one building.
The school, Benn stated, is one of Guyana’s oldest. It was part of Guyana’s history and landmarks.

He related that when he was alerted to the fire, the Fire Service’s tenders were already on their way to respond to the blaze. An investigation is being conducted into the fire.