Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

An ear­ly morn­ing house fire in Tarou­ba has left a fam­i­ly of four home­less and a moth­er nurs­ing first and sec­ond de­gree burns at hos­pi­tal.

Carl Guschard, 49, his wife, Rosanne, and the cou­ple's two chil­dren – Tsian, 21, and Leonar­do, 14 – lost all their be­long­ings when fire gut­ted their home at Bernard Julien Dri­ve, Tarou­ba, yes­ter­day.

Guschard, a dri­ver at a se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny, told the T&T Guardian he was asleep around 7.30 am yes­ter­day when he was awak­ened by his wife for break­fast.

He said Rosanne usu­al­ly prays every­day and yes­ter­day was no dif­fer­ent.

"She said she didn't want to wake me so she went in­to our son's room and lit the can­dles and said her prayers," he said.

"She said be­fore she left the room to wake me, the can­dle she had lit tipped over but she thought it was out."

Af­ter wak­ing Guschard, Rosanne went in­to the kitchen but sev­er­al min­utes lat­er she be­gan scream­ing as she no­ticed flames com­ing from her son's bed­room.

"I heard her scream­ing and then she was shout­ing that the house was on fire," he said.

Rosanne tried to put out the flames her­self and re­ceived first and sec­ond de­gree burns on her hands, shoul­ders, back and head.

At the house yes­ter­day, Guschard sat at a ta­ble in the yard as fire of­fi­cers of the Mon Re­pos Fire Sta­tion car­ried out in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­side the house.

With tears welling in his eyes, he said that his son had not yet been told of the fire, as the St Bene­dict's Col­lege stu­dent was writ­ing ex­ams all day.

He said what­ev­er was not burnt was cov­ered in soot and ash, adding: "Ba­si­cal­ly every­thing is lost."

Al­though he said his fam­i­ly might find lodg­ing with fam­i­ly mem­bers for the night, they are fac­ing a bleak Christ­mas sea­son.