Goed Fortuin midday blaze leaves four homeless

A fire, suspected to be electrical in origin, has left four persons homeless after their two-storey house at 14 A Sideline Dam, Goed Fortuin, West Bank Demerara, went up in flames at around noon on Wednesday.

Neighbours were alerted of the fire by a 14-year-old female, who was in the house at the time with her eight-year-old niece.

The children, who were looking at the television, started to smell something burning, and upon inspection, the eldest child noticed fire coming from behind the refrigerator. She then informed her neighbours and her sister.

“When she called me and tell me it got fire in the house, I asked her what she still doing in there. Come out!” Keesha Austin, the sister who lives a few houses away, related to News Room.

The occupants, who have been renting the house for the past eight years, are Omadelli Turrington, a housewife, and her husband Andrew Benjamin, a vendor.

Benjamin told the News Room that the electricity has been fluctuating as recently as Tuesday ever since the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) came and attached a wire to the house. The distraught man also noted that an electrician on Tuesday fixed the said refrigerator where the fire originated.

“I notice pon a night, this fan does (be) racing away then slowing down, the fan spinning speed speed speed then slowing down…I gotta plug out the fridge pon at night. I say the current mussy overload or something. I don’t know,” Benjamin explained.

The other occupant of the home, who was at the time in Georgetown attending a church service, was notified of her house being engulfed in flames.

Although neighbours formed a bucket brigade, nothing was saved from the fully furnished house.

“The only thing that was saved are the lives of the two children which I am grateful for, but my parents will need assistance to get back on their feet,” Austin expressed in tears.

Though the Guyana Fire Service arrived promptly at the scene, residents complained that they came without water and were not prepared, which eventually led to the house being completely gutted.