A fine `busing’ prevented a small fire at the Krescent Mall at Mackenzie, Linden from ending up as a major catastrophe yesterday.
No one believed Kevin Baron when he ran into the mall and admonished them to evacuate. “Twice, I calmly told everyone that there was a fire and that they should evacuate but no one took me seriously I had to put on deh ghetto style and say deh #$%^% building on fire,” he told Stabroek News. It was at that point he said persons took him seriously and rushed to secure their shops before evacuating. No one was injured.
Baron is one of the store owners and he was at his music shop some distance away when a man told him that there was a fire at the mall. “Well I know I got massive investments in my business there. I grabbed my slippers and ran over to the store,” he said.
One tenant told Stabroek News that she had just returned from the secondary school costume competition and was in her ice-cream shop. “We smell dis strong smoke but thought it was some heap burning on the outside of the building,” she said. But she became concerned when she noticed smoke engulfing the building and consistent irregular crackling sounds coming from the ceiling. The fire was discovered when she went outside and noticed heavy smoke streaming out of the ceiling of the bottom floor. Others also became very confused when they saw heavy smoke engulfing the building.
A man who was doing some work on the inside of the build yesterday said he noticed heavy sparks coming out of electrical outlets.
Others on the bottom flat of the two-storey building said that they were forced to constantly change light bulbs since they blew frequently.
Firefighters had to break open the concrete casing of the outer section of the building where the fire was in order to put out the flames.
All feared the worst had the fire broken out at night, when no one was in the building.
Tenants of the mall were high in their praise for the quick response of the Linden firefighters.e mall, managed by Reginald Sancho and partners, houses approximately thirty tenants. He could not be reached for comment.
