A Linden couple and their three children are in an unenviable state of need, after a mid-morning fire yesterday destroyed their home, leaving them with just the clothes on their backs.
Elvis Daw and Simone Welcome, of 16 Squatting Area, Blue Berry Hill, Wismar, Linden, said that they were both at work when they received the horrible news; and by the time they arrived at the place they once called home, all their personal belongings had already gone up in smoke.
“I had a lot of appliances; everything was in that house, now everything gone,” a distraught Elvis Daw related.
The 38-year-old Daw said he had unplugged all the electrical appliances and is therefore baffled as to what may have caused the fire.
His reputed wife, Simone, 38, seemed in a daze as she gazed at the smoldering debris.
The couple, both security guards, said that they had left home at around 06:00hrs for work, after sending their children off to school, only to receive the dreadful news a few hours later.
A neighbour, Winkworth Payne, said that after he saw black smoke emanating from the house, he rushed over and broke down the door to see whether he could have saved anything, but the flames were too fierce and had already engulfed the structure.
Neighbours’ efforts at a bucket brigade proved futile; and even the Fire Service which arrived a little later only succeeded in containing the blaze.
But by this time the house had been completely destroyed, and there was no more material left to feed the fire.
All that remained after the inferno were the shells of several electrical appliances, including a refrigerator, a television set, and an intact, though blackened metal colander.
Daw said he had lived in the house with his family for more than ten years.
His family comprises his wife and three children: Jamal, 11, Shamal, 9, and six-year-old Shakeer.
(Enid Joaquin)