Six Rasville families lost their homes on Saturday after an apartment building was gutted in a fire started by a child.
The fire occurred sometime after 3 pm at Lot 45 Rasville, Roxanne Burnham Gardens.
Deputy Fire Chief Gregory Wickham told Sunday Stabroek that the Fire Service’s investigations revealed that a child was left unattended in one of the apartments and set the house ablaze while playing with a lighter. No one else was at home at that time.
The fire was extinguished sometime after 4 pm by the Guyana Fire Service but the interior of the building was already destroyed. No one was injured.
According to one of the neighbours, just after 3 pm, the child rushed out of the building and alerted persons who were on the road about the fire. However, by that time, the fire had spread throughout the building. “It was lucky that nobody was in that house how fast the fire spread,” a woman, who did not want to be named, said.
The owner of the building, who also did not want her name disclosed, said that six families lived in the building but many of the tenants were not there when the fire occurred. She said she was informed of the fire and subsequently rushed to the scene where she found that everything in the building burnt.
No further comment was given.
