A fire of unknown origin last evening gutted a two-storey wooden house located at Bladen Hall leaving an elderly couple homeless and with one of them suffering burns and having to be hospitalised.
Rafeena Hassan, 52 and her seventy-two year old husband, Ivan Calistro occupied the bottom flat of the Lot 3 Bladen Hall, East Coast Demerara (ECD) house while they took care of the upper flat. The couple have been occupying the house which has no electricity for many years.
According to reports the fire started around 7 pm and the entire house was quickly burnt to the ground.
Hassan, who was accompanied by a number of family members had just returned to the scene of the fire from the hospital where Calistro was rushed after he sustained burns about his body in an effort to save important documents.
Speaking to this newspaper, the distressed woman said that she was just about to prepare for a night’s rest when she heard a loud explosion. It was unclear to her where the sound came from but she said she reacted by shouting for her husband to leave the house after the fire erupted.
When this newspaper arrived on the scene residents who gathered expressed their concerns that the fire service took approximately 40 minutes to arrive and by the time they did the fire had gutted the entire building.
One neighbour, Fazal Nageer, who operates a shop on the western side of the burnt house said he was returning from the mosque around 7:15 last evening when he saw the large gathering and a huge fire. He added that during this period although the fire had already gutted the building villagers tried to bring it under control.
Another woman said she was sitting in her yard, which is located in close proximity to where the fire occurred and while she was on her phone she felt terrible heat. She rushed out of her yard only to see the house completely engulfed in flames.
