Latest update November 21st, 2024 1:00 AM
Fire wrecks Christmas for Bagotstown families
– two houses razed
Fire of unknown origin wrecked the Christmas Day plans for four Bagotstown families shortly after 21:00 hrs last night, destroying two houses in the East Bank of Demerara community.
Tessa Benjamin and her sister, Nicola Simon were among the victims who lost everything in the blaze.
The houses, which were located opposite each other at the entrance to Norton Street, Bagotstown, were reportedly unoccupied at the time.
Kaieteur News was at the scene some 20 minutes before fire-fighters arrived.
This reporter observed that the blaze started in the one-storey, four-bedroom house in which Ms. Simon had lived. By the time firefighters arrived, that house was engulfed in flames and the blaze had spread to the two storey house in which her sister had resided.
An inconsolable Tessa Benjamin told Kaieteur News that she was in a salon when she received a phone call that her house was on fire.
She collapsed at the scene, while lamenting that she had lost everything.
Her mother, Esme Simon, who sells a short distance away in Norton Street, said that she was vending when she observed smoke coming from the house in which her daughter, Nicola, and three others lived. She was unable to say what could have caused the blaze.
Firefighters, who were verbally abused by residents, were hampered at first by a lack of water, and the fire was already out of control by the time they were able to pump muddy water from a canal.
At press time, they had apparently got control of the fire and prevented it from spreading to a Chinese restaurant.
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