A family of five lost everything yesterday after a fire of unknown origin completely destroyed their home at Friendship Squatting Area, East Bank Demerara.
Gavin McDonald who along with his brother and sister were living in the home said that he had just stepped out of the house to visit his sister in law farther up the street when he heard someone say the house was on fire. Their mother Beatrice ‘Sandy’ McDonald and her husband are presently overseas on vacation. They are expected to return on Monday.
“After I hear that [the house on fire] I can’t really say what happen. I’m really not in a state of mind to talk right now,” a distraught McDonald told Stabroek News.
According to witnesses at this point Gavin tried to run back into the house which was already engulfed in flames.
“He try running inside and was already in the yard when them boys hold he and pull he back out,” one witness said.
Another explained that it took less than five minutes for the house to be destroyed.
“We ain’t really see no kinda smoke. All we see is the back of the roof by the last bedroom dey fall in and by the time that last zinc fall in and the air hit there it just mek vloop and that’s when the gas bottle explode boom. That was it, the entire house gone,” she said.
According to witnesses, members of the community had already gotten the fire under control before the fire service arrived since they were determined to save the neighbouring homes.
“When the fire wheel came them boys already had it under control but they still do they job and completely put it out,” a witness explained.
