Fire suspected to be electrical in origin completely des-troyed a two-flat, two-bedroom house at Bushy Park, Mahaicony around 3.25 pm yesterday and luckily a ten-year-old girl remembered just in time to rescue her “baby sister”.
The child, Arianna Fraser, had already run out into the yard with the maid, Olinda, when she remembered that her three-year-old sister, Ghia, was sleeping in a bedroom and sent the woman back to grab her.
Arianna recalled that she was in the shower when the maid informed her that smoke was coming from a storeroom in the bottom flat of the building and they panicked and ran out. The visibly shaken Arianna told Stabroek News that just after Olinda ran downstairs with the baby the entire house burst into flames.
By the time her parents — Trevor Fraser, an employee of Courts Furniture Store in Georgetown and Yugita Singh who also works in the city — arrived home, the building was already flattened.
Singh, clutching Ghia and sobbing told this newspaper, “once my kids are ok, everything is ok.”
Arianna tearfully recounted that she telephoned the fire station in Georgetown and perhaps thinking the call was a prank, did not take her seriously.
Firefighters arrived at the scene almost one hour later but by then residents had already set up a water pump with a hose belonging to Bhola and Edward Persaud and were dousing the blaze.
This newspaper observed that the fire tender took a while to access water from the nearby trench as residents stood by and said, “we fine hose been doing a better job…”
They expressed disgust that there was no fire station in the Mahaicony area, commenting, “not only Georgetown does have fire.”
Eyewitnesses told this newspaper that there was a blackout in the area and shortly after electricity was restored, they saw “electrical wires sparking in the room” before it erupted in flames.
They formed a bucket brigade, but were forced to abandon it, as the fire was spreading rapidly.
Bhola, of the nearby Perseverance Village, said they arrived with the pump within 15 minutes and one of Fraser’s workers, Dandoo Shepherd tried desperately to contain the blaze. (Shabna Ullah)
