Latest update November 26th, 2024 1:00 AM
Fire destroys Ogle house
The gutted Ogle house
A family of three has been displaced following a fire at 56 Area H Ogle, East Coast Demerara, yesterday evening. The fire believed to be electrical in origin erupted around 17:30 hours, gutting the building and leaving in its wake millions of dollars in damages.
According to owner of the two-storey three bedroom property, 53-year-old Kathleen Rajcumar, she was in the kitchen which is situated on the bottom flat when she started smelling something burning. She was at home with her two adult sons at the time.
The woman recounted that she immediately beckoned one of her sons to inspect the house to ascertain the source of the burning smell. “I started getting this burning smell. It was like a wire burning and I said to my son like the fan overheating and I told him to take it off.” However, the woman said that her son was certain that the burning scent was certainly not related to that of a burning the fan.
“He ran upstairs and I went up with him and we saw black smoke trying to creep out from the ceiling…,” Rajcumar recounted.
Upon observing the smoke, the woman said that she instructed her son to turn off the main switch which he hurriedly proceeded to do. The main switch was situated in a back room of the house.
“When he run to the room all he said is ‘mom my bed is on fire’,” the distraught woman relayed even as she revealed that all of the electrical wires were concealed in the ceiling. It is her suspicion that the fire was electrical in origin.
The woman said that she started dialling the fire service for assistance but was hustled out of the house by a neighbour who had by then observed that the building was on fire too.
“She came and grab me and by the time I came out neighbours and friends, I don’t even know how they know, they just came and started taking out things that were inside the downstairs because downstairs was fully furnished.”
A fire tender, reportedly from the Central Fire Station, arrived about 15 minutes later and started the battle to extinguish the fire which was a raging blaze by then, Rajcumar disclosed.
Fighting to hold back tears, the woman revealed that the house has been her home since 1982 and never before had she suffered such misfortune.
Some neighbours at the scene were very critical of the officials at the nearby Ogle Airport where there are fire tenders.
One resident pointed out that several calls were made to the Ogle Airport but the officials refused to send one of the tenders.
“Dem deh right up de road…Is a quick drive over here…If they had come they could have saved the house,” said one of the neighbours pointing to a road which he said led straight to the airstrip.
The Ogle fire comes almost one week after another fire struck at Crane on the West Coast of Demerara, also leaving in its wake a family of three homeless and millions of dollars in losses. It was suspected that that fire was also electrical in origin.
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
A call for more cultural centres
…Peeping Tom Kaieteur News- Burnham’s decision to divert the Indian Immigration Fund towards constructing the National... more
Rising Gun Crimes in the Caribbean: Urgent Action required by all
By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News – There is an alarming surge in gun-related violence, particularly among younger... more
Weekend Cartoon
