Ten people are now homeless following two separate fires in Berbice, which completely destroyed two buildings.
A building in New Amsterdam, close to the hospital, which housed an extended family of seven was completely destroyed yesterday after it caught fire, the result of a two-year-old child playing with matches.
According to the police, the house belonged to an elderly woman who shared the dwelling with three children and three grandchildren.
Reports are that a 14-year-old child was sleeping and felt heat and immediately raised an alarm. The fire tender arrived shortly after and doused the building but was unable to save it.
Meanwhile, two children narrowly escaped being burnt in a house at Rose Hall, Corentyne on Saturday around 10.15 am; a public-spirited citizen kicked down the door to rescue them.
The children, a seven-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl were left alone in the home by their mother Kaneeza who had gone to the market a short distance away.
Their rescuer, Guru Jagnarine, said he was on his way home from the shop when he saw the fire and heard the children screaming. Neighbours were also shouting that the children were in the house, but they did not dare go in.
Bravely, he made his way up the stairs and kicked down the door. He found the children in a corner looking at the blaze and crying. He grabbed them and ran out of the house, scorching his hand in the process.
As soon as he was safely out of the house with the children, “there was a big ball of fire… it spread like wildfire.”
The children’s mother told this newspaper she had just locked them in the house and did not plan to stay long in the market. Soon after she got to the market, she got the call about the fire.
The first thing she thought of, she said, was the children and she started to panic. When she got to the scene the building was already engulfed but when she heard the children were saved she was relived.
Neighbours were forming a bucket brigade to try to save the other buildings nearby. A resident said he was sitting on his veranda when he noticed a small trickle of black smoke coming from the bedroom and he raised an alarm.
He said a few young men were on the street and they assisted in dousing the building, but when they realized that their effort was useless they decided to save the other buildings, averting a “major disaster.”
He summoned the fire tenders from New Amsterdam Fire Service and the Albion Estate but by the time they arrived the building was already gutted.
