A fire of unknown origin this afternoon ravaged the District Ultra Lounge at the Giftland Mall’s Strip and co-owner Sean Major estimated the resulting losses to be in the vicinity of $45 million.
The fire reportedly started around 1.23 pm inside of the club, which was closed at the time.
The management of Giftland Mall in a statement today said that the fire was extinguished within seven minutes by a first responder team attached to the mall.
According to the statement, when the Guyana Fire Service arrived at the scene, the situation was already under control. It did, however, credit the fire service with being instrumental in having the smoke trapped from the building extracted.
During the fire, the mall was evacuated and customers and workers from the different concessions spent just over an hour outside before being allowed to return inside the mall at around 2.45 pm.
Chairman of the Giftland Group of Companies Roy Beepat told reporters today that persons were alerted after observing flames and smoke. He noted, too, that alarms went off and a team from Supreme Ventures, assisted by employees from the mall, sprang into action.
“Our team was very quick and managed to put out the fire in record time. We had a lot of smoke damage and that caused a lot of problems,” Beepat said.
Noting that no one was present in the club at the time of the fire, he opined that the fire could have been electrical in nature.
“The bar is absolutely destroyed and there is smoke damage to other parts of the strip,” Beepat said, while explaining that they had to reverse all the air conditioning units to have the smoke quickly extracted.
He added that after the fire started, the gas and all electrical power supplies to the building were shut off. He also credited the performance of the responder team to their frequent fire drills.
Meanwhile, Major told reporters that he was at home when the fire started. “…I got a call saying that the inside is on fire. I didn’t know to what extent or magnitude. I came down as soon as I could but my business partner was here before me. But when I got here I was in total shock. The inside was completely damaged and we are devastated…,”Major said.
“The business is actually closed. We [are] normally closed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Last night was our staff party for all of our staff from our other businesses and I don’t want to make any speculations, we don’t know what happen,” Major further added.
For his part, he ruled out that the fire was electrical in origin and noted that fire officers at the scene informed him that all of the electrical components were not significantly damaged. He indicated that the highest quality products were used during the construction of the club and that they operated to the highest standards.
Major was unsure of what he would do as the business was not insured and he said that he would have to discuss the future of the operations with his business partner.
“I designed this place myself…This is my baby. I birthed this place and it is really heartbreaking right now. I will have to sit down with my partner and see where we go from here,” Major added, while noting that 21 persons were out of a job as a result of the fire.
