Six persons are now homeless following a devastating early morning fire yesterday which took down the entire wooden building at Lot 36 John Street, between D’Urban and Hadfield streets, Lodge.
One of the occupants, Madonna Luke who lived in the upper flat with her 11-year-old son, Kevon De Freitas, had no choice but to throw her son out the window when he was not waking up. The woman reportedly woke up and found that her entire bedroom was already in flames.
Her brother, Christopher Squires told Kiskadee Watch that he was alerted to the fire around 2:30 am when he heard his brother, Angelo Lupe, screaming for their sister upstairs. The brothers lived in the bottom flat of the two-storey house. “My sister and nephew were still in the house. They barely made it out in time,” he shared.
Squires, a security officer, was at the time searching through the rubble to determine if anything in the house was salvageable. “The entire house was engulfed, and nothing was saved including documents; not even clothes. Everything burned, down to the plants,” he lamented.
According to him, the Guyana Fire Service (GFS), which is located a stone’s throw away, took approximately 30 minutes to arrive on the scene. “The three of us will have to start clearing and picking up the pieces,” he expressed.
Meanwhile, Lupe told this publication that it was his girlfriend who initially discovered the fire after noticing a glare in their ceiling. “I ran out and saw the entire front of the house already in flames. I started knocking and didn’t hear a response from my sister. When I ran around the side of the house, I saw my nephew on the ground,” he recalled.
“She threw him out the window. She said when she opened her eyes she saw her entire bedroom on fire. She tried waking him up, but he wasn’t so she had no choice but to throw him out the window. Good thing the house isn’t so high. I see him flat on his face trying to get up and couldn’t move and when I look to my left, I see my sister slinging coming down from the window,” he continued.
Lupe shared that it was an old building; about 75 years in his estimation. According to him, the GFS told them that the fire was electrical in origin.
He said that explosions occurred because of a gas cylinder and other combustible materials that were present due to his sister’s work as a nail technician.
Lupe is hopeful that members of the public will assist the family in any way possible, such as providing building materials, or even clothing at the moment. The family can be reached at telephone number 646-7518.
The GFS said in a short statement on its Facebook page that it received a call at 03:33 hours and arrived on the scene at 03:37 hours. “The building was fully engulfed and another was threatened; there, the firefighters went swiftly into firefighting mode. Firefighters managed to extinguish the fire, however, the other building was partially damaged,” the GFS said.
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