An air-conditioning unit malfunctioned and caused the fire which gutted the upper flat of a Charlestown house on Wednesday night, Fire Chief Kalamadeen Edoo confirmed yesterday.
In a telephone interview with Stabroek News, Edoo disclosed that an investigation has found that the fire was electrical in origin.
The unit “… was sparking and ignited with combustible items in the vicinity including a blind,” Edoo explained.
The flat which is situated at Lot 43 Broad and Russell streets, Charlestown, Georgetown was occupied by Swinborn Nunes and his seven-year-old son.
Divisional Commander of the Guyana Fire Service (GFS), Hemchandra Persaud had previously said that the fire service received a call around 6.29 pm informing it of the blaze.
Upon arrival, he said the firemen concentrated on extinguishing the fire using water from their tenders. Persaud noted that the firemen were able to contain the fire to the top flat. Nunes estimated his losses to be in the millions.
He recalled that he and his son were in his shop next door when he heard shouts of fire. He was unable to salvage anything.
“I was on the pave selling when a girl come to me and said ‘Bonny, Bonny, look fire’ and I said ‘Fire, where’…? When I look up the fire was coming from the last bedroom but it wasn’t smoking, it was a gush of fire… When we see the fire, it had already reach to the front,” said the 76-year-old landlord Rudolph Gravesande.
Gravesande lives in the bottom flat along with his 42-year-old son and his daughter-in-law.
