Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Four fam­i­lies, com­pris­ing at least 18 peo­ple, are now home­less af­ter a fire on Africa Road, Laven­tille, gut­ted three homes yes­ter­day morn­ing.

While the sur­vivors are grate­ful to be alive, they say they will have to start “from scratch” as all of their be­long­ings were de­stroyed in the fire.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area, fire of­fi­cers from the Wright­son Road Fire Sta­tion were still on the scene dous­ing the burnt-out hous­es and sur­round­ing bush­es with wa­ter.

One woman, Eliz­a­beth Ram­nath said she was asleep just be­fore 9 am when she felt an in­tense heat in­side her home.

She quick­ly woke up and re­alised her home and oth­ers clus­tered near­by were on fire.

“I just ran out when I felt the heat. I just run out.

“It was re­al­ly fright­en­ing, this is my broth­er’s place. It’s just him and I liv­ing and we lost every­thing.”

Res­i­dents said neigh­bours rushed to their as­sis­tance by form­ing a buck­et brigade to pre­vent the spread of the flames to oth­er near­by struc­tures be­fore fire of­fi­cers ar­rived.

How­ev­er, the fire spread quick­ly, de­stroy­ing the homes of the fam­i­lies with­in a mat­ter of min­utes.

Two oth­er hous­es were al­so dam­aged as fur­ni­ture and win­dows were scorched.

An­oth­er af­fect­ed res­i­dent, Giselle Estra­da, said she was at work when she re­ceived a call from her son that their home was on fire.

She said while she was hap­py her chil­dren were not hurt, it was dis­heart­en­ing to know that all of her be­long­ings in­clud­ing im­por­tant doc­u­ments and even the im­mu­ni­sa­tion cards of her chil­dren were lost in the fire.

“No­body wake up and ex­pect to face this.

“Chil­dren gone to school and don’t know when they come back where they’re go­ing, what they’re go­ing to eat or drink.”

Coun­cil­lor for Beetham/Pic­ton area Dar­ren Cor­ri­don said he met with res­i­dents and gath­ered as much in­for­ma­tion as pos­si­ble to co­or­di­nate as­sis­tance with oth­er agen­cies.

“With­in a mat­ter of min­utes, every­thing was flat­tened. A lot of the struc­tures were made of boards which have been up for a very long time.

“I reached out to the San Juan Re­gion­al Dis­as­ter team, they are or­gan­is­ing to see what they can bring. The MP has been in close con­tact with me.

“I have my own mas band, so mem­bers are look­ing to see what they can pool to­geth­er as well to help.”

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue, Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land, SC, said he vis­it­ed the site of the fire yes­ter­day af­ter­noon and met with res­i­dents.

Scot­land said he was al­so grate­ful that no lives were lost.

“I met with the four fam­i­lies on the scene and I have de­vised a plan of ac­tion to as­sist them in the short, medi­um and long term.

“We will at­tempt to do our best to soft­en this blow.

“But I must say I am so grate­ful that no lives were lost, I am eter­nal­ly grate­ful to the Almighty and I am so thank­ful no lives were lost.”

Fire of­fi­cers are still try­ing to de­ter­mine the cause of the blaze.