-children escape
A 45-year-old man was burnt to death in a fire that engulfed his Lot 32 A Sussex and Ketley streets home yesterday afternoon while his four children managed to escape unhurt.
The dead man, Ronald Misir, had been occupying the bottom flat of the two-storey wooden building for the past four years with his four children. His wife would stay there periodically.
The fire started around 3 pm.
Owner of the building, businessman Ramlagan estimated his losses to be around $10M as not only was the entire building destroyed but the nearby fence was damaged.
He told this newspaper that Misir was living in the property free of charge and drank heavily. According to him, the information he received is that a lighted cigarette which the man had had fallen and that is how the fire started. According to reports Misir was drunk at the time of the fire and as such he was unable to flee the burning structure in time.
His body was found near the doorway.
A release from the police yesterday said that the upper flat was occupied by two males while the lower flat was occupied by Misir and his four children.
The police said it was reported that Misir was cooking when the stove flared up and set a blind on fire. The two men from the upper flat and the four children escaped, the release said.
A resident living nearby said that she saw smoke emanating from the building and immediately raised an alarm. The fire service was called but the fire tender, she said, took some time to arrive because of the heavy traffic.
However, she said that the firemen worked hard to contain the blaze using the water from their tank and from nearby drains.
The eastern walls of a few small houses next door were damaged by the inferno. Water also entered the houses during the battle to contain the blaze.
The occupants of those houses were busy mopping up when this newspaper visited the area and were thankful that a major disaster was averted due to quick action by the fire fighters.
(Zoisa Fraser)
