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Fire destroys Crane house
— Seven homeless
It must have been divine intervention but it certainly wasn’t the efforts of the Guyana Fire Service that helped to contain a fire which completely destroyed a Crane Housing Scheme, West Coast Demerara, residence yesterday.
The two-flat premises, situated at Lot 14, was home to at least seven persons, all of whom were left with merely the clothes on their backs, as there was no time to save anything.
Lot 14 Crane Housing Scheme, WCD, on fire yesterday.
Recounting the ordeal, 25-year-old Orita Davis, who shared the three-bedroom upper flat of the building with her mother, four-month-old baby and two other relatives, explained how she first realized there was a fire when she heard something spark. The fire reportedly started sometime after 14:00 hours.
According to the tearful young woman, she was in the kitchen at the time with a close friend, Andrea Fields, who was helping her to cook, since she was home alone with her baby and felt rather tired. Fields had earlier arrived with her own four-month-old baby. The two babies were placed in the middle room of the flat to sleep.
Davis recalled that upon hearing the spark she went to the front room of the flat and was in a state of shock when she saw an electrical wire in the room on fire. Her first reaction was to scream-out to her friend after which she rushed for some water in hopes of putting out the increasing blaze.
Recognizing that the fire was spreading quickly, Davis’s next move was to halt her valiant attempts and run for safety. By this time her friend had already exited the flat to safety with the two babies.
Andrea Fields consoles her tearful friend Orita Davis (at right) while other residents look at the burning house.
Davis was unable to save anything and fought desperately to contain her emotions as she looked at the mounting flames bellowing from the building which she had moments earlier called home.
“I was trying to out the fire…I empty a whole tub of water trying to out it…All I hear was a explosion like a gas bottle blow and next thing I know the whole house was on fire,” Davis recalled.
The bottom flat of the house was occupied by two young men, one of whom reportedly only moved in on Sunday last. Neither of them was at home at the time.
The fire service was summoned several times by a number of neighbouring residents, some of whom converged a short distance from the fiery blaze. Some could be heard vocalizing their concerns about the possibility of the fire spreading to other houses and the fact that the fire service had not yet arrived.
The plastic gutters on two nearby houses had begun to melt and the electrical wire attached to the burning house had by then been burnt loose.
There was no sign of any Guyana Power and Light officials to disconnect the flow of electricity in light of the conflagration.
USELESS TRIP
A fire engine from the Leonora Fire Station was the first on the scene, some 40 minutes after the start of the blaze. However, it would appear that Murphy’s Law, which speaks to everything going wrong, was in full effect, thereby allowing for everything that could have gone wrong to go wrong.
Battling to fix a hose connection.
The fire engine arrived and several firemen immediately disembarked and commenced attaching hoses obviously to start fighting the fire. One fire officer informed this publication that the engine contained some 400 gallons of water.
However, that water was of no use, as a hose connection was not done properly, thereby allowing the water to escape. This allowed for the roadway to be considerably soaked rather than the blazing house. Even the support of some residents to rectify the problem was to no avail.
The next move by the fire officials was to pump water from a nearby trench. However, this publication was informed that because of the slush that was pumped from the waterway the pump being used malfunctioned.
There was literally nothing that could have been done by the firemen given the unfortunate dilemma.
ANOTHER FIRE ENGINE
A fire engine from Georgetown was soon summoned and arrived close to one hour later. Again a hose connection challenge occurred before the firemen were able to kick into action. By this time the fire had completely gutted the house and there were fears that the winds would fuel it enough to spread to another house. Some residents were seen dousing that residence in hopes of helping to safeguard it.
However, the winds that had earlier threatened to fuel the fire suddenly dissipated. There were a few more explosions and the crackling sound of items being burnt continued, but the flames became smaller.
With the aid of the Georgetown-based fire engine, the firemen were able to pump water from the nearby trench and doused what remained of the smoldering house.
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