KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As dis­as­ter struck a Princes Town fam­i­ly on Sun­day, they could on­ly stand help­less­ly by the road­side and watch as a fire en­gulfed their home, de­stroy­ing near­ly every­thing they owned.

It took fire­fight­ers 45 min­utes to ar­rive, by which time the blaze had al­ready con­sumed the struc­ture. The fire was so in­tense that the con­crete blocks of the three-bed­room house be­gan to col­lapse.

Princes Town Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Dr Aiy­na Ali ex­pressed frus­tra­tion with the length of time it took for fire­fight­ers to ar­rive.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the charred re­mains of the house yes­ter­day, Ali not­ed that the for­mer Princes Town Fire Sta­tion—now de­funct—was just five min­utes away from Hill­side Gar­dens, Buen In­ten­to, where the fire oc­curred.

The sta­tion was closed in Ju­ly 2024 af­ter fire­fight­ers walked off the job due to the build­ing’s de­te­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tions and rat in­fes­ta­tions. Since then, staff and ap­pli­ances have been re­as­signed to the Rio Claro and Pe­nal sta­tions, leav­ing Princes Town with­out its own fire cov­er­age.

Ali said the fire had start­ed at the back of the house and, by the time crews ar­rived, the flames had al­ready spread to the front. She re­called that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, dur­ing its time in Op­po­si­tion, had pushed for the re­open­ing of the Princes Town sta­tion, but no progress had been made. Now, she said, the new gov­ern­ment would work to re­store prop­er fire ser­vices to the area.

“I do com­mend the of­fi­cer of that fire sta­tion be­cause, giv­en the time­frame, they did re­spond in a time­ly man­ner,” Ali said.

She added that an as­sess­ment would be car­ried out to de­ter­mine how best the au­thor­i­ties could as­sist the fam­i­ly.

The 50-year-old home­own­er, who de­clined to be named, re­count­ed that around 4.30 pm, he, his wife, 55, and their 15-year-old son were prepar­ing to leave the house when they smelled smoke. In­ves­ti­gat­ing the source, he found a mat­tress in a back bed­room on fire.

He tried to ex­tin­guish the flames us­ing wet tow­els, but when that failed, he at­tempt­ed to move the bed, burn­ing his hand in the process. As the fire quick­ly spread, he de­cid­ed to evac­u­ate his wife and son and called for help. Mean­while, neigh­bours tried to help with the use of a wa­ter hose.

“I de­cid­ed to get my son and wife out of the way and see how fast we could have the fire ser­vice reach up here. It took about 45 min­utes from San Fer­nan­do be­cause Princes Town Sta­tion has been non-op­er­a­tional for how many years now. I be­lieve if it was, things would have been dif­fer­ent,” the home­own­er said.

De­spite the de­lay, he com­mend­ed the fire­fight­ers for work­ing swift­ly once they ar­rived.

Af­ter liv­ing in the home for 18 years and in­vest­ing heav­i­ly in its com­ple­tion, the home­own­er es­ti­mat­ed loss­es ex­ceed­ing $300,000. Ap­pli­ances, elec­tron­ics, jew­ellery, cloth­ing, and cash were all de­stroyed.

The emo­tion­al toll has been equal­ly se­vere. He said his wife and son were trau­ma­tised and that his son may have to stay away from school for the next two weeks as the fam­i­ly seeks shel­ter with rel­a­tives.

“No­body would want to see their life like this or what­ev­er they were work­ing to­wards, es­pe­cial­ly when you have chil­dren. You work for your chil­dren, to make sure they have some­thing at the end of the day to car­ry on their lives.”

The cause of the fire re­mains un­known, and the home­own­er is await­ing a re­port from the fire ser­vice to de­ter­mine what hap­pened and whether the house can be re­paired at all.