St Philip man loses everything in fire

The house that Ortis Samuel called home for over three decades went up in smoke within minutes yesterday afternoon.

The 52-year-old lost everything when fire engulfed his two-bedroom house at Rock Hall, St Philip, around 3 p.m.

Samuel had been on his way to a nearby Automated Teller Machine (ATM) when he got the dreaded news. When he rushed back, his home and contents had already been devoured by the flames.

“When I came back, the neighbour told me they just see the sparks and my house burn flat. I lost everything. The only thing I have is this shirt and this pants,” he told reporters at the scene.

One eyewitness who opted not to give her name said she saw the flames from one window and rushed with a bucket of water to extinguish the fire.

“But by the time I get there, the window burst out right in front of me,” she recalled, adding that she then tried to alert Samuel.

“We were trying to call him back, so we were hollering, hollering for his name, but we couldn’t get him. So I stopped a vehicle and tell them, ‘tell the man that going down there by the airport to come back that his house was on fire. All we could do was just clear out the way because the wires start to pop down and so on.”

Another eyewitness said the fire spread rapidly and despite neighbours’ feverish efforts, they could not save Samuel’s home, so they tried to stop the house next door from being destroyed.

Barbados Fire Service Station Officer Tremelle Perch, who led a team of eight fire officers, said they did all they could to save Samuel’s house.

“We had a response of two water tenders – one from Bridgetown Station, the other from the Worthing Fire Station. We had two timber structures that were involved and we managed to put out the fire quite effectively; we did the best we could to bring the situation under control,” he said.

Samuel, who said he got the property from his mother, had recently purchased new furniture and other items for his home.

“Now I have lost everything,” he lamented. sandydeane@barbadostoday.bb