A family of six escaped with their lives, but lost everything they owned, after a fire destroyed their two-storey home at Alness Village, Corentyne, on Tuesday afternoon.
Gumattie Desa, 38, said she was cooking in the kitchen at around 15:30 hrs when the blaze erupted, sparked by an electrical fault in a Guyana Power and Light wire near the house.
The wooden-and-concrete structure, which had three bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs, was completely destroyed along with all of the family’s belongings.
Desa said she first learned of the danger when someone outside shouted a warning to her.
“Me went in the kitchen cooking, and then my son went in the yard with a pressure wash. So me hear one voice, one little person said, ‘Auntie Vanie, something sparked upstairs.’ So me know that nobody is inside the home, it’s just me alone. My baby is by my mother-in-law,” she said.
She said she rushed outside and saw sparks coming from the wire before the fire took hold of the front room.
“We look up from the house, there is a wire where the GPL wire come from. That’s where the sparking come from. The sparking like spark, and then the fire give like boof, and the fire take the front room,” she said.
Desa said she told her son to cut off the main electrical switch, but he was unable to reach the upper floor before flames overtook it.
“Me tell him, ‘Run upstairs, cut off the main switch, watch a wire spark.’ And he run in the kitchen to run up the step, but he can’t go up the step. The fire just give like boof and start for flame up in the front room,” she said.
Her son retreated as the fire spread, while Desa returned to the kitchen to turn off the gas stove before fleeing the house. She said she escaped with only the clothes she was wearing before collapsing from shock.
The couple’s four children were away from the home when the fire broke out. Their 21-year-old daughter was at work, their 20-year-old son was in the rice fields with his father, their 16-year-old son was in the yard outside the house, and their 13-month-old baby was at her grandmother’s home.
Desa said the fire destroyed everything the family had built over 22 years of marriage, including furniture, two computers, refrigerators, freezers, air-conditioning units, a microwave, clothing and household appliances.
She said cash set aside for the family’s rice farming operation was also lost in the blaze.
“Me bring money for go back into the rice crop. Me not carry the money to the bank. We buy some diesel only yesterday… all of that gone,” she said.
Desa said she was uncertain what the family’s next steps would be.
“Me can’t say what is the next move. Because everything that we work for and earn, everything is gone. The only thing I can say is me get strength for my kids, because me get one little one is 13 months, and there is nothing, nothing, nothing save for her. Everything burn out,” she said.
Her husband, rice farmer Vishnu Ganpat, 49, who has worked in the industry for more than three decades, was in the fields when he received a phone call about the fire.
“Well, right now me in the crop… they ain’t save nothing. They ain’t save nothing, nothing. I’m heartbroken over everything. Thank God that I come and see my family alive,” he said.
Ganpat said he saw smoke rising in the distance before he reached the scene.
“Me turn after me get a phone call, me turn and watch from there, me see the smoke way up in the sky… Me can’t use no more other dam to come out,” he said.
He said there was nothing left to salvage by the time he arrived.
“What you’re going to pick up here? It ain’t get nothing to pick up. Nothing ain’t there to pick up,” he said.
The family is appealing to the public for assistance as they begin rebuilding. Persons wishing to help can contact them on 677-4420 or 686-8453.
