Derek Achong

An au­to garage in Bel­mont was com­plete­ly de­stroyed yes­ter­day when a back­yard fire, start­ed by a neigh­bour, quick­ly spread.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 8.30 am, fire ten­ders re­spond­ed to the fire at In­dus­try Lane in Bel­mont. 

The fire of­fi­cers were able to stop the blaze from spread­ing to oth­er neigh­bour­ing prop­er­ties but were un­able to save the sin­gle-sto­ry wood­en house in the garage's com­pound, which was en­gulfed in flames. 

The own­er of the prop­er­ty was able to move some of his wreck­ers be­fore they were de­stroyed. He and his rel­a­tives de­clined to com­ment when ap­proached.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the fire start­ed af­ter a neigh­bour set a fire to dis­pose of rub­bish at the back of his yard, which bounds the garage. 

The neigh­bour was seen us­ing a gar­den hose to help ex­tin­guish the rem­nants of the fire, which re­mained near the prop­er­ty bound­ary when a news team from Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the scene. 

Po­lice sources said that in­ves­ti­ga­tors are con­sid­er­ing charg­ing the neigh­bour as he did not have a per­mit to start a fire dur­ing the on­go­ing dry sea­son. 

The of­fence car­ries a max­i­mum penal­ty of a $1,500 fine or up to six months in prison. 

Mean­while, po­lice and fire of­fi­cers are in­ves­ti­gat­ing a pos­si­ble ar­son at­tack on an In­di­an Ex­po in Ch­agua­nas yes­ter­day.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 2.40 am, po­lice re­ceived a re­port of a fire at the ex­po lo­cat­ed along En­deav­our Av­enue in Ch­agua­nas. 

The se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer as­signed to the com­pound told po­lice that there was no is­sue when he walked about around mid­night and he on­ly no­ticed smok­ing com­ing from the build­ing around 2.20 am. 

Af­ter ex­tin­guish­ing the fire, fire of­fi­cers found a hole in the perime­ter fence, which ap­peared fresh­ly cut, and a track in the grass lead­ing to the high­way.  

No one was in­jured in ei­ther of the fires.