The fire started sometime after 8:30 last evening and according to one of the affected residents, a few boys were playing in their home and after they left a lit candle unattended, smoke was seen emanating from the house.
Eurlene Dover, a city vendor, and her daughter, Lashawna Samuels, along with three children lived in one of the razed houses. According to Dover, she was in the house with her 13-year-old son when she heard something “cracking” next door. When she peered outside she saw her neighbours’ home on fire and she and her son immediately got into motion by pouring several buckets of water on their home. “The fire was too much,” a distressed Dover related. She said the boys’ guardian, a Special Constable attached to the Guyana Police Force, was not at home when the fire started.
The house to the left of Dover’s belonged to a young man who is reportedly out of the country. Two other houses, which were pushed into a nearby trench to prevent the fire from spreading, belonged to a security guard and another man known as “Mr Fowler.” The fire department arrived on the scene of the fire last evening but by then the three homes were already destroyed.
Members of the Guyana Police Force were also in the area maintaining order as the firemen carried out their duties last evening.
