RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

A dev­as­tat­ing fire has de­stroyed nine au­to­mo­tive busi­ness­es in Bam­boo Num­ber Two yes­ter­day.

The fire start­ed just af­ter 5 pm as a loud ex­plo­sion was heard com­ing from one of the busi­ness­es.

Fire of­fi­cials were up to late at­tempt­ing to ex­tin­guish parts of the mas­sive blaze that kept reignit­ing chal­leng­ing fire of­fi­cials at the scene.

The dam­age is said to be in the mul­ti-mil­lions of dol­lars.

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia busi­ness­man In­shan Ish­mael whose busi­ness place is op­po­site to where the fire start­ed said it be­gan at the north­ern side of the busi­ness block called “Au­to­plex”.

“This fire start­ed op­po­site to my home. My daugh­ter heard a few nois­es and thought it was peo­ple of­fload­ing con­tain­ers but when I came down­stairs and heard the noise I peeped out­side and saw smoke em­a­nat­ing from the first build­ing on the north­ern side and fire so I im­me­di­ate­ly raised an alarm and at­tempt­ed to throw fire­balls but I couldn’t get in be­cause of the bur­glar proof­ing,” Ish­mael said.

Fire officers fight a fire that destroyed several used car parts outlets in Bamboo No 2 Valsayn, yesterday.

ANISTO ALVES

“Neigh­bours start­ed to as­sist with fire hose but be­cause of diesel and oil and oth­er com­bustible items and in less than ten min­utes the en­tire north­ern side was on fire. The fire spread quick­ly be­cause of the high wind con­di­tions trav­elled west and then made a U-turn,” he added.

Ish­mael said the most em­bar­rass­ing thing was that the fire of­fi­cials ran out of wa­ter about three times and fire­fight­ers had to de­pend on wa­ter trucks despatched by the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty.

He dis­closed that the area has no fire hy­drants.

“Sev­en years ago my busi­ness place burnt down and since then no hy­drants. They have $20 mil­lion to spend to put peo­ple in hog pen but we don’t have mon­ey to put fire hy­drants.”

Al­so speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia one of the ten­ants said he is frus­trat­ed and stressed out.

“I lost mil­lions of dol­lars and I am stressed out. So many peo­ple out of jobs now. It’s nine busi­ness­es that burnt.”

A fire of­fi­cer on the scene ad­mit­ted that they were chal­lenged but as­sured that they are work­ing fever­ish­ly to ex­tin­guish and con­trol the blaze.

“Be­cause of the na­ture of the busi­ness­es the fires will keep reignit­ing but we are do­ing our best with what we have at the mo­ment.”