Sascha Wil­son

Com­plaints about the state of the Fire Ser­vice were re­vived yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a fire in Pe­nal which left four peo­ple, in­clud­ing a 12-year-old girl, home­less.

The fire start­ed around 2.45 am while Anil Sun­dar, 45, and his fam­i­ly were asleep in their home at See­bal­ack Trace, Rochard Road.

Sun­dar re­called: “We heard crack­ling sounds like sounds of bro­ken glass and I alert­ed my wife. When we ex­it­ed the room the house was com­plete­ly cov­ered in smoke. We woke my dad, and by the time we ex­it­ed, the house was com­plete­ly en­gulfed in fire.”

He be­lieves the blaze start­ed in a back room which has been un­oc­cu­pied since the death of his moth­er two years ago.

The fam­i­ly lost every­thing apart from the clothes on their backs and Sun­dar, who said he was dis­sat­is­fied with the re­sponse of the Fire Ser­vice, be­lieves his home would not have been de­stroyed if they were bet­ter equipped.

“Yes, they re­spond­ed but poor­ly be­cause in less than ten min­utes they had no wa­ter. Then we had to wait for the oth­er fire truck which came long af­ter. They had to go around look­ing for a hy­drant. They had no lad­ders, they had no head­lights, they had noth­ing. The fire of­fi­cers were will­ing but they were re­al­ly strapped with re­sources. Thank God no­body was trapped,” he said.

“We have a so-called state-of-the-art Fire Ser­vice in Pe­nal yet still there was no ten­der to re­spond to the fire. Some­thing needs to be done be­cause I sure there will be in the fu­ture oth­er peo­ple who will suf­fer.”

Sun­dar es­ti­mat­ed his loss­es to be rough­ly $1.5 mil­lion. His home was in­sured.

Next-door neigh­bour Fer­ose Ab­dool said he and his son tried to douse the blaze and pre­vent the flames from spread­ing to his prop­er­ty.

“It was ear­ly hours in the morn­ing when we were wok­en up by a lot of noise, a lot of cry­ing and shout­ing and scream­ing, plus the ex­plo­sive noise like crack­ing noise and when we woke up we dis­cov­ered my neigh­bour’s house on fire,” he said.

Ab­dool said the re­sponse of the Fire Ser­vice was “not on­ly un­ac­cept­able, it is dis­gust­ing.”

As­sis­tant Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Ansar Ali said fire ap­pli­ances from Pe­nal, Siparia and San­ta Flo­ra re­spond­ed and there was a sup­ply of wa­ter at all times. He said the Fire Ser­vice re­ceived the call at 3.14 am and a ten­der from Pe­nal was dis­patched.

“They ar­rived at 3.35, they made a re­quest for pumps two (re­quest for a back­up wa­ter sup­ply) at 3.20 am, that’s be­fore they left.”

Ali said Siparia ar­rived at the scene at 3.50 am and Pe­nal left at that time to re­plen­ish the tank.

“Whilst they out San­ta Flo­ra came,” he said.

Com­plaints about the state of the Fire Ser­vice have in­creased since the deaths on April 2 of a moth­er and daugh­ter in a house fire in Siparia.