A fire one block away from the Rose Hall Town Fire Station left four persons homeless yesterday.
The fire occurred at around 3:15 pm at Lot 104 Middle Street Rose Hall Town, where Lawrence Rodrigues was in his shop, situated on the bottom flat of the two-storey building. Singh, also a resident in the building, heard some cracking sounds coming from the upper-flat and sent his eight-year-old son, De-Angello, to investigate. His son came back a few seconds after and told him that the upstairs is on fire. With this, he said, he came out immediately and ran upstairs with a bucket of water with the intention of putting out the fire. But he was forced to turn back as the flames were too much for him.
The Fire Service responded promptly, but came with “too little water,” one onlooker said. He said that there is need for fire hydrants at strategic places in the streets. “Them fire man had to go to a trench fuh water and they couldn’t get because the trench got plenty stuffing,” he added. He related that it was not that the Fire Brigade got there late, but that the time taken to assemble their structures to source water which gave them problems.
Meanwhile, Rodrigues said that the other two occupants of the house were not at home at the time of the fire. He found it strange that the fire started at a place where they do not usually visit and a week after some tenants were removed from the lower flat. Lawrence said he was taking in some stocks he just bought “and then to be confronted with this” made him very confused. He could not remember calling the fire service, but was thankful to whoever did.
According to Linden Smartt, another occupant of the house, they had received a shipment of goods and others articles only a month ago from the US. He could not put an accurate figure on losses but said “it’s in the millions. We took many things up there.”
