A 56-year-old unemployed man of No. 41 Village, West Coast Berbice has been left homeless after his two-bedroom wooden house was destroyed by fire early yesterday morning.
Ronald Samuels said he was “not around” and could not say how the fire started. He said all of his furniture and other household articles were lost in the blaze. He had gone to the shop and “while waiting on the shop to open a lady come and tell me my house on fire.”
A neighbour told this newspaper that he was awakened around 5:45 am to loud crackling sounds and looked over and saw the fire in Samuels’ front bedroom. “Within minutes,” he said, the entire house was engulfed. The fire tender from the Onverwagt Fire Station and one from the Blairmont Estate arrived while the house was still burning and managed to put out the blaze.
However, around 2 pm another blaze started among the debris and fire-fighters from the Onverwagt station had to be summoned again to put it out.
As this was happening, Samuels sat on the parapet obliquely opposite, looking on. He was wondering who would “rescue me and give me a place to stay.”
A young man who was around then told this newspaper “me and dem boys would knock up a lil thing in his yard for him.” Samuels said he was a minibus driver but had stopped working because he was “sick.”
