A fire suspected to be of electrical origin gutted the home and wholesale grocery store of businessman Shazim Hamid yesterday at Diamond Housing Scheme, rendering him homeless and causing him to suffer millions of dollars in losses.
Reports are that sometime around 10 am neighbours observed smoke emanating from the building and quickly raised an alarm but were unable to save anything from the burning house since it was heavily grilled.
Neither Hamid nor his wife Eugenia Amanda Fernandes was at home at the time of the incident.
According to Hamid he had left his Lot 683 15th Avenue, Diamond Housing Scheme, East Bank Demerara home sometime around 9:30 am to transact business in the city and just as he was finished at one location and heading to another he received the call informing him of the fire.
He said: “I went to Guyana Trinidad Mutual Fire & Life Insurance Company (GTM) to carry some documents because I applied for a loan and I had just finished there and was headed to the Valuation Office. I get a call from one of my customers telling me that my house is on fire.”
He stated that upon hearing the dreadful news he immediately rushed home but by the time he arrived the entire building had been burnt.
Hamid said that his house is insured. He could not estimate his losses at the time but said it is in the vicinity of millions of dollars since he had a well-stocked wholesale grocery store at his house and they were unable to salvage anything.
The man said he is still awaiting answers from the Fire Service as to how the fire started.
However, he said that he suspects it is of electrical origin.
“Since 2:30 this morning (Wednesday) I wake up and see everybody in the neighbourhood had light but only me ain’t had any so I think that may have been one of the causes,” Hamid stated.
According to residents in the area, they saw the smoke coming from the house sometime around 10 am, just minutes after Hamid would have left the premises.
A resident, who asked not to be named, told Stabroek News that she was speaking on her phone and heard someone shouting “Fire”, “Fire” and when she looked through her window she saw that the house was already covered in thick smoke.
She said “I hear the neighboors shouting ‘help’, ‘fire’, ‘fire’ and when I peep through my window I see the place full ah smoke, then I come out and we tek buckets and try to save the house.”
The Guyana Fire Service was summoned and took approximately 30 minutes to arrive at the scene, blaming the delay on the heavy traffic at Farm/Covent Garden where there is a road expansion project underway.
Residents said if the Fire Service had arrived minutes earlier the building could have been saved because they had the fire contained to just one side of the building, but the fire managed to spread to other parts of the house after they ran out of water.
Another resident said, “We had the fire under control but then the water start to run out and then because they had a shop the carton box them start to ketch and then the fire spread but if the fire service had come a lil bit earlier they could have saved the house.”
Next door neighbour, Nalini Budhu, told Stabroek News that she was not at home at the time but was informed by her nephew, Sasenarine Persaud, that the next door building was burning. She added that when she arrived home she immediately began soaking her house.
“I went by the street head and then me nephew call me and tell me that dem people house on fire so we run come and try to save we own,” she stated.
Budhu also stated that the firemen could have saved the building from burning had they arrived a bit earlier.
Fire Chief Marlon Gentle said that investigations are ongoing and at this time the cause of the fire is unknown.
