Christ Church family of seven homeless after fire destroy home

Fire destroyed the home of a family of seven and damaged two other houses at Hutchinson Drive, Silver Sands, Christ Church around 2:55 p.m. on Tuesday.

The uninsured three-bedroom wooden house owned by Gloria Ashby, who lives in Boston, USA, was occupied by her son 52-year-old Ricardo Estwick, his girlfriend, 35-year-old Nira Daniel and their five children ages 13, 10, six, three and one.

According to police, Nira was in the kitchen cooking and two of the children were playing in a bedroom with a cigarette lighter when the bed caught fire.

As the blaze grew, neighbours ran to assist and tried to put out the fire but were unsuccessful.

Two other homes, one on either side of the destroyed house, were also damaged. Three windows were damaged in the house owned by Sonia Prescod and two in the house owned by Damian Waldron.

Two fire tenders and eight personnel from the Barbados Fire Service responded to the fire.