Fire razes North Ruimveldt home

Oct 22, 2008 News

– six homeless

A fire suspected to be electrical in origin yesterday afternoon broke out at Lot 8 Lamaha Springs, North Ruimveldt, and completely destroyed the building which housed a family of six, among them four school aged children.
The owner of the home, Rhonda Garnett, 33, told this newspaper that she left her home at around 7:30 hours for work. The woman further noted that one of the older children would normally leave home at around 8:00 hours. According to the homeowner, when she left her home there was “blackout”, and she turned off everything in the home.
She said that she received the dreaded news from a neighbour, who called to say that she should come home immediately because “meh house on fire”. Upon arrival at her home, the woman collapsed at the sight of the destruction that caused her to “lose everything that she worked so hard to achieve”.
She was adamant that the Guyana Power and Light is to be blamed for her losing her home since the lights were on and off the entire morning.
She denied having any lighted object in the home.
According to neighbours, the lights were flickering all morning and at around 10:00 am they smelled something like rubber burning.
Neighbours said that they saw flames emanating from the house at around 14:15hrs and immediately summoned the Guyana Fire Service.
However, the residents are claiming that the fire could have been brought under control, if the gate that divides Lamaha Springs and Lamaha Park was not “locked”.
Instead the Guyana Fire Service vehicles were forced to drive backward to the next access road to Lamaha Springs, a distance of about two miles.

What is left of the two-bedroom house

They said that the Commissioner of Police, Henry Greene, said that the gate should be locked because the residents of Lamaha Springs have cows which would destroy the plants in Lamaha Park.
One resident said that this is the second fire to have happened in recent months, and the same problems with the gate are to be blamed.