Inshad Alli, whose home went up in flames on Tuesday morning at Good Intent, West Bank Demerara, has denied that his children were playing with matches and caused the fire.
Fire Chief Marlon Gentle had said that the fire was caused by children playing with matches in the house.
Alli, on the other hand, is denying the finding and he noted that his four younger children were on the bottom flat of the house waiting to bathe to go to school. “It wasn’t nothing like that,” he said of the Fire Chief’s report on the cause of the fire.
He added that his wife, Ramwattie Nagessar, was still suffering from blackouts and shock. “It is a loss for us,” he related, before adding that his family has since gone to the Guyana Relief Council for financial help.
He stated that his family is still reeling from the effects of the fire and that their loss was too much to mention.
On Tuesday around 7:30 am, a neighbour saw flames rising from a room in the top flat of the house and had shouted at Nagessar to alert her. The mother of nine then rushed up her stairs to wake her eldest son, who was still asleep. After managing to get all of her children out of the house, she had collapsed in the doorway at the bottom flat. Neighbours, however, rescued her and put out the fire by fetching buckets of water.
After the fire, villagers and family cried out that fire tenders were desperately needed on the west bank and expressed disappointment at the Guyana Fire Service’s late response. Gentle, however, stated that the West Ruimveldt fire tender was held up in traffic at the Demerara Harbour Bridge.
