‘Fishy’ fire

An elderly man believes there is something “fishy” about the cause of a fire that destroyed his Harlington, St Philip home last night.

Edward Browne a 71-year-old pensioner told Barbados TODAY that while police assured him they would be investigating the circumstances surrounding the fire from which he barely escaped, until he receives an official report, he is sticking to his belief that “there is something fishy going on here”.

“I ain’t saying somebody burn it down because I ain’t see. But it just ain’t seem right to me,” he said.

The fire took place around 11 p.m. on Monday.

Edward Browne looking at the remnants of his home which was destroyed by fire on Monday night.

This afternoon, as he viewed what was left of the three bedroom wooden structure, which he shared with his two sons, Browne said he was especially saddened because he did not get the opportunity to save any of the household items. Everything was destroyed.

“Right now I don’t have anywhere to put my head. I got to go and beg bout at my family now and ask them if I could stay at them. I had some money there, about $40, now I got to walk bout break like a pauper and I may want something to drink or something.

“I lose muh fridge, I lose all of muh possessions; chairs, tables, mahogany, all of them things burn up. Forty dollars was the last ah had in muh wallet, with all the documents and all kind of different things, all of them burn up. I got to wait now on people,” he said.

Browne said he had just returned home and went into his bed when the smell of rubber burning woke him up, and his further investigations revealed that a section of the house was already on fire.

“But I thank God cause I could be dead. I could be burn up. The police tell me so. I sick and weak. If I did stumble in there and fall down, that would have trapped me. So I had to come down on the step and run out there,” Browne said.

The elderly man, who has 18 children, is appealing to authorities and kind-hearted Barbadians to offer him any possible assistance.