In the aftermath of a fire, which has left a woman and her daughter homeless, a resident whose home was threatened believes the damage could have been far less if there had been ready access to water.
A still-shaken Caroline Anthony on Tuesday recounted the Monday morning fire, which completely gutted her neighbour’s house and had her scrambling to save her belongings.
The fire started around 8.45 am at a corner house and spread to another house just north of it. Before long, the flames were licking at the house that Anthony occupies.
Speaking from her Third Street Liliendaal home, Anthony said she did not envisage that the fire would have spread so quickly. But she was adamant that if the Guyana Fire Service (GFS) had access to water, one of the houses could have been saved.
“Well, I was inside watching television when a neighbour called out to me and said that a small fire from the bottom house of an abandoned house looked as though it was spreading. I felt that it was nothing big and so I came inside for a bucket of water,” she said.
The woman said by the time she reached outside she saw the flames shooting from the abandoned house, where it had started, towards the house in which Ann Ramsaywack and her daughter Amanda lived.
“When the fire truck came the fire hadn’t even spread to those people’s house… the fire was still a bit stable and they could have prevented it from going to the other house if only they had water,” Anthony said.
She said it took a while for the firefighters to access water and by the time they had, the fire was out of control. Within minutes, it had gutted the Ramsaywacks’ residence, a house they were taking care of for a woman who now lives in Canada.
A still distraught Anthony said she started to panic as the flames spread and with the assistance of other neighbours emptied her home of all her belongings.
On Tuesday when this newspaper visited the family’s home, a makeshift wall had been erected in the lower section of the house to protect the family belongings, some of which were scorched by the fire.
“And even when the fire started blowing on our house, the firemen were still busy concentrating on the other house which was already completely destroyed and if it wasn’t for my husband our house might have been badly damaged
