Over $200 million went up in flames at midnight on Wednesday when two buildings which housed Dharry’s Furniture Store and Echo and another store at Rose Hall, Corentyne were gutted.
By the time the fire tender from New Amsterdam arrived on the scene some one and a half hours later, both buildings were already engulfed. Firefighters joined hoses and got water from a trench in the nearby Williamsburg Village. In the meantime, residents had formed a bucket brigade and prevented the fire from spreading.
The buildings were in close proximity to a number of other businesses including the Republic and Demerara bank branches, Poonai’s Pharmacy, Prenita’s Photo Studio and a Digicel outlet.
Druval Dharry, owner of Dharry’s Furniture Store and Dharry’s Echo, said he was asleep in the building above Dharry’s Echo when his security guard informed him that the place was on fire.
Dharry said he attempted to retrieve his bank cards before escaping since he did not keep money at his home. But he abandoned the idea because of the intensity of the heat. The obviously shaken man said right after he fled the entire building was engulfed.
Secretary of the Central Corentyne Chamber of Commerce (CCCC) Khrisnanand Raghunandan, who owned the second building, said he was “dozing off” at the time of the fire when he was awakened by someone calling him. When he looked out, he said, he saw a friend who told him that the store next door was on fire.
He looked out his bedroom window and saw the fire in the other building and dialled 911 but after the phone rang twice, he said, he heard the zinc on his roof making loud noises and he dropped the phone and ran outside. He said that he did not get a chance to save anything; his certificates, passport, everything went up in flames.
He said a store operated in the building and had lots of materials from the Berbice Expo held at Albion last year.
A crowd had already gathered by the time he got outside, he said, and he noticed the fire spreading to a third building, where an octogenarian woman lived. He said he and others broke down her fence and gate to get her out, as thick smoke was building up in her home. The woman could not walk and had to be lifted out, he said.
By this time, the fire service had arrived and fire-fighters began soaking the octogenarian’s home and a transformer in front of Republic Bank.
Raghunandan said the CCCC had asked Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee when he was in Berbice on February 1, if there was anything in the budget for the long-awaited fire station in Rose Hall. The minister, he said, told them no.
The CCCC secretary lamented that Rose Hall is the only municipality that has no fire station, even though the CCCC had pledged half of a million dollars towards this venture since 2005.
Meanwhile, Dharry said that a furniture factory at the back was also destroyed.
Dharry’s Echo, which was managed by one Mahesh had a section for watches and gold and silver jewellery and also stocked Hindu religious items and Indian clothing.
When this newspaper arrived at the scene early yesterday morning the five employees from the two stores were sitting in front of the building with glum faces. Many other persons were gathered there and some were seen rummaging through the rubble where the jewellery section was. Some said they found lumps of gold and silver.
The watchman, Dennis Daniels, told this newspaper that around midnight he had gone to the back of the building to make checks when the guard from Demerara Bank opposite the store alerted him about the fire. He said after he called out to Dharry he picked up his bag and ran out.
The man said a fire tender from the Albion Estate arrived on the scene about one and a half hours after but could not access water and left. Shortly after, two fire tenders from New Amsterdam turned up and they were able to get water from the trench at the nearby Williamsburg Village.
A resident who lives behind one of the buildings said his stairs had already started to burn and his concrete fence had cracked from the heat. But he doused that and another building in the front that houses a few businesses.
He said other residents cooperated and ran from all around with buckets to quell the blaze but they were no match for it.
Dan Mc Bean, a resident of Williamsburg Village said he was about to go to bed when he heard a loud noise which sounded like gunshots and looked out, noticed the blaze and ran over to offer assistance. When the fire tender arrived he helped the firemen to join the hoses to reach the trench for water.
Mc Bean recalled that the heavy breeze caused the fire to spread rapidly and by the time they were finished setting up the hoses the buildings were already burnt. He said they concentrated on saving a nearby lumberyard and other houses. The fire also burnt electrical wires resulting in a blackout.
The man stated that almost two years ago his house was destroyed by fire. He said he called for the fire tender and when he called again to see if it had left he was told that it was on its way. But he remembered that it took about one hour to get there.
Another eyewitness, Roy Harry, said he learnt of the fire from his neighbour who was going to borrow a movie from his friend. He said the neighbour ran back and woke him and they both rushed to the scene and helped to douse the other buildings.
“The stores de already burn so we had to save the other places,” the man said. As word of the fire spread, a lot of people assembled on the road. (Additional reporting by Adrian Smith)
