Latest update September 25th, 2026 10:30 AM
Oct 31, 2023 News
…owner says $50M worth of materials destroyed
Kaieteur News – A fire of unknown origin on Monday completely gutted a lumber yard at Enmore, East Coast Demerara (ECD), resulting in some $50 million in losses of materials.
Owner of the land, Richard Persaud said that the fire started at about 10:00hrs. Persaud highlighted that he owns the land, but rents it to Rohan- who owns the lumber yard. Persaud said persons would dump garbage and set it ablaze from time to time at an adjoining lot. “Now it’s the pile of garbage that created this fire, because somebody been lighting this, to burn the rubbish, and it spread across, like they throw gas,” a frustrated Persaud told this publication. Notably he had spoken to the Neighbourhood Democratic Counsel (NDC) about this occurrence, but according to him they did nothing about it. “I don’t know what to do about it, this thing happening donkey years now,” he said.
He said that the proprietor of the lumber yard called the Guyana Fire Service between 10:30 to 11:00hrs, but was told by an official they could not respond as all the fire tenders were out. He explained that he asked the fire service whether they could get back up, “because Rohan Lumber Yard would be completely burn up. I called back again that’s around 11:30hrs, and I was driving up, so as I got there, I saw two fire trucks doing nothing, they don’t have water or something,” Persaud related. He said eventually another truck arrived and attacked the fire that was lit at the garbage site, which had spread to the grass.
Contacted on the matter, Chief Fire Officer, Gregory Wickham said that firefighters had tried to put out the blaze at the lumber yard. He also mentioned that it is not likely for the fire service to show up on the scene with no water. Notably, the fire chief said a few days ago, they hosted a drilling session showing the public on how the Guyana fire Service intends to handle situations as such.
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