Two separate fires on Friday completely destroyed two homes at Kuru Kuru Sandpit Squatting Area, Soesdyke-Linden Highway; and Coomacka Mines, Linden, leaving eight persons displaced.
The first fire was reported at about 01:00h and involved a one-flat wooden building owned and occupied by 29-year-old Onika Jacobs and her family of six at Kuru Kuru Sandpit Squatting Area, Soesdyke-Linden Highway.
It is suspected that the fire started after a curtain came into contact with a lit candle. The Fire Service said the curtain ignited and spread to the entire building.
The occupants of the building used buckets of water to extinguish the fire before the arrival of the Guyana Fire Service. However, the building and its contents were destroyed, leaving the seven persons homeless.
Jacobs in an interview with another section of the media, said she had left her children at home and went out, when she received a call that her house was on fire. The woman said she immediately rushed home.
“I am a single mother and I work very hard…now, we are homeless. We only have the clothes that we had on… I can’t catch myself. We don’t get current, so my son say he light the candle and the lamp. He said [he], didn’t know the fire was burning until he started feeling it on his face…” Jacobs explained.
She said that based on what her son told her, he had to leave everything and save himself because before he knew it, the entire house was engulfed in flames. Jacobs said her son barely made it out of the house before the roof caved in.
Meanwhile, at around 12:00h on the same day, the GFS was alerted to a fire at Delon’s Sports Bar, Coomacka Mines, Linden, Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
The structure involved was a one flat wooden and concrete building that is used for recreational purposes as well as a dwelling house, owned and occupied by Delon Thomas.
Preliminary investigations have revealed that the fire was a result of a malicious act by person(s) unknown.
As a result of the fire, a quantity of clothing and a mattress were destroyed. One stabiliser, one wooden bed frame, a freezer, and the entire roof of the building were also damaged.
Neighbours used buckets of water to extinguish the fire before the arrival of the Fire Service.
According to the Fire Service, due to the location of both fires, the Guyana Fire Service had much difficulty gaining access as the terrain was not conducive to their heavy-duty appliances.
