Four families homeless after Montrose fire

Apr 12, 2013 News

Fire razed two houses, leaving four families homeless and millions in losses at Second Street, Montrose, East Coast Demerara, yesterday.

The damaged buildings

Fire fighters who reached the scene around noon tried unsuccessfully to save the two wooden and concrete buildings which housed more than 20 persons. The blaze scorched an adjacent building which was methodically doused with water. The heat was so intense that two plastic water tanks on the building melted rapidly.
According to one of the occupants of the back building, Sandra Ramatola, she was watching television at the time of the fire, when her 87-year-old mother raised an alarm that smoke was coming from a room as she was climbing the stairway into the home.
“She say ‘watch fire, fire’ and I run and collect my two granddaughters and I rush downstairs and out of the yard,” Ramatola said. “Is a front house and back house, top and bottom, and all awe is family, and now all awe don’t have nothing, we lost everything…all I run out the house with was my cell phone.”
Adding that she could not comprehend how the fire began, Ramatola lamented that she finished cooking since 07:00 hrs and no one uses matches in the home, only a lighter for the stove.
“I lost all my jewels and money. Everything is gone and now what should I do?”
A resident occupying another building in the yard, ‘Baby’ Parboo said “I hear people say fire and me and everybody run out the house when we see smoke and fire coming from the back house.”
Suping Wong, who occupied the adjacent building, said she received a call at work saying that her house was on fire. However, after racing home she discovered the house in which she lived was severely scorched at the rear.
“I got the call around 1:40 pm and I raced home, and after I raced home I saw it wasn’t my house that was burnt down, but only the room I use was scorched,” Wong said.