Ten persons, including an eight-month-old baby, escaped with only their lives early Thursday morning when a fire, suspected to be electrical in origin, gutted their two-storey Den Amstel, West Coast Demerara home.
An estimated $5M worth in articles and home appliances were said to be destroyed in the fire, which has left the family taking refuge at a neighbour while pleading for public assistance to help them rebuild their lives.
The occupants of Lot 36 Public Road, Den Amstel said that they are not sure exactly what may have been the cause of the fire, but they believe that an electrical problem originating from within the ceiling could be one of the possible causes.
Stabroek News was told that the fire reportedly started from the upper flat of the five-bedroom concrete and wooden building at around 3am.
Gordon Schmidt, who has been living there for the past 20 years, said that he secured his premises after which his family went to bed. At around 3am in the morning, he added, screams and shouts of “Fire! Fire!” awakened him. “One of my children started screaming so I jump out of my sleep… I tried to get everybody out of the house. Thank God no one was injured,” he said.
His wife, Debra Roberts, who works as a janitor at the Den Amstel Primary School, added that the family had watched a movie together, after which they went to their beds. The distraught mother was also awakened by screams that the house was on fire. The woman explained that the residents in the area tried their utmost to put out the blaze but it was beyond their control. Roberts also noted that the fire fighters arrived on the scene about thirty minutes late and by that time, she said, everything was already engulfed in flames.
“I was out of words… I couldn’t do nothings but look at me house go down,” she said. The distraught woman explained, that she and her husband toiled very hard to “make ends meet” so that their family could be comfortable. She added, “We were living in a small zinc house. My life changed over de years but now my house is burnt into pieces.”
When Stabroek News visited the family yesterday, they had been taken in by Gillian McPherson, a neighbour who opened her doors to them. McPherson, who has known Roberts for the past 20 years, and she said the incident was one where the family would “need a shoulder to lean on.”
“It is a period of total devastation… from the time I heard sounds, I watched through my window and see this bright fire in the second floor, I watch the house go down about fifteen minutes in flame. There is nothing more that I could have done than open my door to my neighbours,” McPherson added.
This newspaper was told that the family is awaiting a word from the Guyana Relief Council, which contacted them earlier yesterday. “They promised to give us back a word by Monday… but they said they will help,” Roberts said.
Another member of the family was trying to get help from Food for the Poor (FFTP).
