A family of eight is now homeless after a midday fire, suspected to have been caused by an electrical spark, gutted their Melanie Damishana home yesterday. Bevaughn Austin, Sherwin McAlman and six children now have to find shelter elsewhere after the fire burned through their two-storey house just three months after they moved in.
While neither Austin nor McAlman was at home at the time of the incident, one of the children who was present related the sequence of events to Stabroek News. “I was in the veranda around 1:15 and we had blackout all day since 8. It was coming off and coming on all the time for like four times before the time,” he said, stating that after the electricity came back on for the last time he felt a heat emanating from the living room.
“I didn’t take it seriously because I thought it was a neighbour burning something somewhere and that’s where the heat was coming from,” he added. He said that when he started smelling strong smoke and felt the heat increasing, he looked into the house where he saw the fire.
“I run out into the hall and start shouting for the rest [his siblings] to see if anybody in the house and then I run outside,” the youth said, pointing out that one of his siblings was forced to jump through his bedroom window and onto the garage to escape the raging flames.
Another one of the children said that after the last blackout came on they heard something sparking and then a “boof” before smelling smoke and then seeing a fire just mere seconds after.
Austin and McAlman related that they lost about $40M (cost of the property that they had only recently bought and items lost in the house) and said they are convinced that if the fire service had arrived promptly they could’ve at least had the downstairs to stay in. Stabroek News was made to understand that the fire service took some 40 minutes to arrive on the scene and when they did, they had to resort to a nearby trench.
Residents also expressed their disappointment in the tardy response of the fire service. “If they only come on time they coulda save the people house and they woulda had at least somewhere to stay tonight, now everything gone,” one of the neighbours said.
