Fire gutted the Barrack Street house of Rainforest Tours proprietor Frank Singh yesterday afternoon.
The fire, residents said, started at about 4.05 pm just after the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) ended a long power outage in that section of Kingston, Georgetown.
When Stabroek News arrived at the scene some time around 4.30 pm the fire had already gutted the house and had been put out by fire-fighters.
There were two fire tenders present. One was on Fort Street where fire-fighters could access Singh’s house from an alley and the second was on Barrack Street.
A distressed and distracted Singh told Stabroek News that he was not home at the time of the fire. A quantity of Rainforest Tours’ assets, he said, were being stored at the Lot 33 Barrack Street house and they had all been destroyed. He was unable to give an estimated value of his loss at the time. Investigators were still at the scene up to 5 pm.
Singh’s daughter-in-law told this newspaper that they’d been informed of the fire several minutes after it started and they rushed to the area. Her father-in-law, she said, lived at the location for more than five years.
“We’ve learnt that the fire started right after the black out ended and it is likely the force with which the current came could’ve caused something to spark…we won’t be able to say until we hear from the experts investigating this,” she said.