Four homeless, five homes struck in City blaze

Four people are now homeless after fire destroyed two houses, extensively damaged another, and slightly damaged another two in the densely populated area of Queen’s Street, The City.

An elderly couple, who have also been displaced, also had to seek medical attention at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH).

Jeffrey Hoyte, who is now searching for a home as a result of the blaze, said he was at a neighbour’s home when he observed the blaze from the elderly couple’s home and that triggered him to swing into action.

He said it was the determination of the couple’s son and other residents who ran to assist, that saved their lives.

“What really makes me feel pleased most of all is that the old lady next to me and the old man, they feel safe because really and truly it looked like they was gone,” Hoyte said. “To say what happened I would be telling lies. You just see flying and you just see smoke. I run inside, get a puppy and back out.”

City MP Lt Col Jeffrey Bostic was not present while reporters were on the scene but an aide said that he was at the hospital with the elderly couple.

Fire Service Divisional Officer Mervin Lewis told reporters that following a call at 5:19 p.m., 21 firefighters responded to the scene with four appliances from their base at The Pine.

But area residents told reporters they were upset that police used force to stop them from attempting to put out the blaze. Fire Service Station Officer Wayne Vaughn said while he commended those who made the effort to lend a helping hand, it was dangerous for them to try to extinguish a fire where there were falling high-voltage electricity cables.

“Because they are not trained, persons could be easily injured or killed as a result of that,” he said. And so although it may seem like we are pushing them, it was for their safety. If they are trying to stop the fire until we get here, that is fine. But once we arrive on the scene all we want them to do is to take a backseat and assist when we ask for it. But it can be very dangerous, especially in that environment that we saw here this evening, for them to be involved at this level.”

While the Fire Service has been busy since the start of 2021, Station Officer Vaughn took the opportunity to remind Barbadians to do all that is possible to prevent fires at their homes including not overloading electrical circuits and cooking if tired.

“Persons still take these kinds of chances and they figure this kind of thing can never happen to me. But sometimes it doesn’t even have to be you. We have here four or five houses involved as a result of this fire this evening, two of them completely destroyed. The fire originated at one of these houses which means that the other had nothing to do with this fire.”

(anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb)