Fire guts Eccles house; four homeless

A family of four is homeless after a Sunday morning fire gutted the house they were renting at 94 CC Eccles, East Bank Demerara.

The house is located in the street just before Industrial Site.

According to residents of the area, the fire started at around 08:30h. Thick black smoke was seen emanating from the front room of the house.

The fire quickly spread to other parts of the house before engulfing the entire building. The blaze did not affect nearby houses and was eventually put out by the Guyana Fire Service some 30 minutes later.

Samuel Ward, who lived in the house with his wife and two children, aged two years and eight months, said that his wife alerted him that the breaker box was aflame. Quickly, the fire spread to the ceiling and then to other parts of the house.

The couple had been residing in this house for more than a year now and their landlord lives overseas. On Sunday afternoon, Ward said he was still trying to figure out where they family would stay henceforth. The young children, however, were with their grandmother and their mother was trying to purchase pampers and other essential items for the time being.