RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A mas­sive fire tore through the Dansteel Ltd com­pound in La Ro­main, caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to the mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar fa­cil­i­ty.

The blaze, which start­ed on the roof around 10.15 am, quick­ly spread to the ceil­ing of a room on the east­ern side of the build­ing, pro­gress­ing in a west­ward di­rec­tion. By night­fall, the fire reignit­ed as heaps of lum­ber at the back of the com­pound caught fire, re­quir­ing ad­di­tion­al fire­fight­ers to be de­ployed.

Fire­fight­ing teams worked tire­less­ly from mul­ti­ple an­gles, suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent­ing the flames from spread­ing to the neigh­bour­ing Schlum­berg­er com­pound on South Trunk Road in La Ro­main. How­ev­er, their ef­forts were met with chal­lenges, as propane tanks with­in the com­pound be­gan ex­plod­ing, in­ten­si­fy­ing the in­fer­no.

When Guardian Me­dia ar­rived on the scene around 10.30 am, work­ers were in a state of shock, their tear­ful gazes fixed up­on the blaze.

Vashti Singh, a mar­ket­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tive, ex­pressed dis­tress: “It is heart­break­ing. This is where I work. This is my bread and but­ter. We are out of a job now, and we don’t know what will hap­pen.”

As the work­ers gath­ered at the muster point, a head count was tak­en. Chief fi­nan­cial of­fi­cer Jen­nifer Bikhaw con­firmed that all 60 em­ploy­ees were ac­count­ed for and safe­ly evac­u­at­ed.

When asked about the cause of the fire, Bikhaw ex­plained, “The cause of the fire is un­known. It start­ed at the end of the build­ing where main­te­nance work was be­ing con­duct­ed. The fire of­fi­cers will de­ter­mine the ex­act cause.”

She said em­ploy­ees were ad­vised to go home.

Bikhaw em­pha­sised that the pri­or­i­ty was the safe­ty of the em­ploy­ees and the fire­fight­ers bat­tling the blaze, not­ing that a meet­ing will be called soon to ad­vise them fur­ther.

A rel­a­tive who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty raised con­cerns re­gard­ing the use of wa­ter on­ly to com­bat the fire, giv­en the pres­ence of high­ly flam­ma­ble ma­te­ri­als on the com­pound. He sug­gest­ed that foam could have been used in­stead.

But As­sis­tant Fire Chief Ansar Ali told Guardian Me­dia that they were fac­ing chal­lenges in get­ting the fire un­der con­trol.

“We have propane tanks that are ex­plod­ing, and this is caus­ing the fire to spread,” Ali said.

He al­so said that the T&T Fire Ser­vice (TTFS) had ar­rived with four wa­ter tankers and were at­tack­ing the fire from all sides.

The in­ten­si­ty of the blaze, fu­elled by the ex­plod­ing propane gas tanks, rocked the area with loud ex­plo­sions, prompt­ing work­ers to flee for their safe­ty. Pri­vate com­pa­nies, in­clud­ing Du­more En­ter­pris­es, pro­vid­ed a steady sup­ply of wa­ter to sup­port the fire­fight­ing ef­forts.

An hour lat­er the own­er of Dansteel Ltd Wendy Bhag­wans­ingh ar­rived and broke down in tears.

Wail­ing loud­ly, she was led away and placed on a chair.

The com­pa­ny had pre­vi­ous­ly ex­pe­ri­enced a fire in 2018.

Over­whelmed, Bhag­wans­ingh told Guardian Me­dia: “I feel like part of me has been on fire al­so ... It is worse than we think. My God, how could this hap­pen?” she said.

“It’s to­tal dev­as­ta­tion. I would wish noth­ing like this to hap­pen to any­body, es­pe­cial­ly now with the econ­o­my in Trinidad. What is left for us to do? Where do we start to build back? There is no hope.”

Long-stand­ing em­ploy­ee Nor­bert Har­ris, who had ded­i­cat­ed 43 years to Dansteel, ex­pressed dis­tress af­ter wit­ness­ing the de­struc­tion.

“I am sup­posed to re­tire soon. My boss­es are good peo­ple. I feel sor­ry for them,” Har­ris said.

An­oth­er em­ploy­ee, Cindy Bho­la, echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, de­scrib­ing Dansteel as their “home away from home” and ex­press­ing con­cern for their un­cer­tain fu­ture.

Through­out the day, em­ploy­ees used fork­lifts to res­cue parked ve­hi­cles from be­neath the burn­ing build­ing. Late in­to the evening, fire­fight­ing teams con­tin­ued to ex­tin­guish the smoul­der­ing de­bris, work­ing tire­less­ly to bring the sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol.