Fire scare for Giftland OfficeMax

Dec 22, 2010 News

…as adjacent structure razed

Christmas shoppers in Giftland OfficeMax had quite a scare yesterday when a fire broke out behind the store just after lunch.
According to Roy Beepat, owner of the store, the alarm was raised at about 13:00hrs and trucks from the Guyana Fire Service were on the scene within 20 minutes of the call, in spite of congested city streets.
He noted that his building was not affected in any way, which was a relief, considering that the fire broke out on the other side of a wall where the multiplex houses its enormous generator and a holding tank said to contain almost 600 gallons of fuel.
The fire is said to have started in the lot behind the store where there was a supposed welding operation. It is unclear whether or not the operation is legal, but residents of the area say that there are a few men who use gas (oxy-acetylene) welding torches to cut up old vehicles for ‘scrap’ at the area that was razed yesterday afternoon.
When Kaieteur News visited the scene just the charred, collapsed walls of the structure that once housed the welding operation were visible.
In what was surely a test of the company’s ability to respond to emergencies effectively, the entire store was evacuated. One shopper told this newspaper that when the alarm went off initially, everyone just stopped what they were doing for a brief moment then went back to it. When the alarm went off a second time, a staff member came up the stairs and announced that it was not a drill but “a real alarm”. The shopper said that after that point the evacuation went remarkably well for a store such as Giftland which is usually filled with shoppers and merchandise on normal days, much less in the week of Christmas.
Staffers were apparently located at strategic points throughout the store to direct the shoppers out of the building through the emergency exits and to maintain an orderly evacuation. Preliminary reports indicate that no one was hurt or injured during the evacuation.
Meanwhile, several male staffers of the store removed their ties and rolled up their shirtsleeves to volunteer their services to the firefighters in bringing the fire under control.

Firefighters and volunteers check the remains of the burnt structure. At right, with the scorched roof, is Giftland’s generator room

One of the persons believed to have been responsible for the blaze was on the scene. He identified himself as Mohamed Ali, of Wales Housing Scheme. He had denied any knowledge of the fire but when the police questioned him, he admitted to being the person who was doing the cutting using the torch.
He said that when the fire started his colleagues collected the equipment and fled the scene. He was on crutches so flight was out of the question.
Some of the welding tanks and equipment were discovered stashed under a tarpaulin in the tray of a Canter truck that was parked on the lot.