Fire destroys DeSinco’s buildings on Sheriff Street

Aug 20, 2020 News

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By Renay Sambach

It was chaos yesterday afternoon as fire ripped through three DeSinco Trading Limited buildings on Sheriff Street, Georgetown. While firefighters struggle to control the blaze hours after arriving on the scene, Minister of Home Affairs, Robeson Benn, shared some concerns as it relates to how the fire was handled by firefighters.
Around 13:20hrs, a fire of yet to be determined origin, erupted in the wooden upper flat of the Associated Packers Industry building (which belongs to the owner of DeSinco Trading). When Kaieteur News arrived on the scene, the fire was under control as members of the Guyana Fire Service were seen hosing the building.
However, the fire quickly escalated since firefighters started experiencing issues in getting water, which resulted in the fire spreading to a back building.
According to a source, the top flat of Associated Packers Industry building is used as a home and the back building is a bond, which stores items for DeSinco Trading, a large distributor of consumer products.
As the firefighters struggle to control the burning buildings, members of the Guyana Police Force also had a difficult time controlling a large crowd that gathered to watch the fire. After the police officers were able to set up barriers some distance away from the fire, some persons were still trying to get closer to the scene.
A woman in the crowd shouted, “The fire wasn’t this big, now look what happened; they allow the fire to spread and now they can’t control it.” Another man yelled, “This is what they using our tax payers dollars to do…they send trucks that don’t even have water. How can a fire truck come to (put) out a fire without water in the tank?”
While persons continued to voice their concerns, the owner of DeSinco Trading Limited, Frank De Abreu, his wife and other relatives arrived on the scene. However, Mr. De Abreu, shortly after his arrival began hyperventilating. According to reports, he was rushed to a hospital for medical reasons. Some of his relatives remained at the scene of the fire.

Meanwhile, more fire trucks started to arrive on the scene and after 40 minutes of trying to contain the fire, it spread to DeSinco’s office building, which is situated to the right of the building that was initially on fire.
While some firefighters continued hosing the first building, others turned their attention to the office building and for 20 minutes, the fire ripped through its top floor. By this time, the fire which appeared to be under control in the first building resurged with a vengeance. A section of the building started to collapse.
The fire started to spread to the electrical wires in front of the first building. However, the fire on the wires was quickly extinguished by the firefighters, while owners of nearby buildings started to douse them with water.
At around 15:40hrs, shortly after Minister Benn arrived on the scene, another fire truck came with a ladder. The firefighters quickly started to gear up to put out the fire from the ladder since those on the ground were having trouble tackling it at the top floor of the building.
As the ladder extended close to the top floor of the office building, firefighters on the ground started to break the doors of the bottom flat of the office building. The fire had already spread to the second floor. It was while the firefighters engaged the fire that Minister Benn spoke with members of the media.
When asked what prompted his visit, he said, “From my office, I could’ve seen the black smoke for hours so I decided to come down here.”
Many were worried that the fightfighters were taking too long to contain the fire. But according to the Minister, “the firefighters are claiming that inadequate supply of water from the main and not having the foam that is needed to deal with the chemicals that are burning is the cause for the fire not being extinguished by now.”
These issues the Minister said he intends to have addressed as part of the training for firefighters. He also expressed concern over what he dubbed “lack of energy” in the operation and observed that too many officers at the scene resulted in no one being assertively in control.
The Minister also added that “as a general rule now, I would want to see for businesses, which have storage of this kind, crude and oil and so on, they install a fire sprinkler system so that the earliest effort could be made to bring a situation like this under control.”
By 16:30hrs, the firefighters were eventually able to fully extinguish the fire before it spread to DeSinco’s Furniture building that is located to the right of the office building. An investigation into the origin of the fire is ongoing.

 

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