Stall owner loses all in fire

A vendor at the Constitution River Terminal is counting his losses but determined to bounce back after a fire gutted his stall in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

The Barbados Fire Service was contacted around 2 a.m. when vendor Nelroy Calderon raised the alarm after hearing a loud explosion and seeing flames coming from Tyson Horne’s stall.

Staring at a red gas can that lay on the ground in front of what he said had been “a nice shop”, Horne told the media that he had left his business around 10:30 p.m. on Monday but received a call about the fire after 2 a.m. the following day.

A visibly shocked Horne who opened the business last December said he had lost his full inventory of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks as well as snacks, worth hundreds of dollars, his phone and other personal belongings. He said speakers he had purchased just Monday to play music in the stall were also lost in the blaze.

Claiming that the act was a result of jealousy, Horne was adamant, however, that the fire was only a setback.

“I know how to hustle and I am not giving up. I am not going nowhere. I staying in this van stand and sell,” he insisted.

Recounting the moments leading up to the fire, Calderon said he had seen two people running from the area.

“I was on the corner sitting down and I witnessed two people come down through here and I was wondering what they were doing behind here. Then I saw them running off and heard a loud explosion and I came down here and saw the fire,” he recalled.

“I tried to . . . see if I could get it out. I asked several people to call the Fire Service for me and nobody wouldn’t help, so I ran back out here and a fella was coming from the hospital and borrowed his phone and called the Fire Service.”

Investigations to determine the cause of the fire are underway. (JMB)