RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

Three chil­dren per­ished in a fire at Rook­ery Nook, Mar­aval yes­ter­day morn­ing, af­ter two of their sib­lings were res­cued by neigh­bours and peo­ple work­ing close by.

Ezekiel Burke, 17, Faith Burke, six, and Kay­den Burke, three were un­able to es­cape the house when the fire start­ed.

Their two sib­lings, Jeni­ceia Burke, 15, and Kiseane Burke, 13, es­caped.

Po­lice in­ves­ti­gat­ing the trag­ic event said they re­ceived a re­port of the fire at 7.36 pm.

In­sp Dirk John led a team of of­fi­cers to the scene and found a one-storey house al­ready en­gulfed in flames. The of­fi­cers al­so heard screams com­ing from in­side the burn­ing house.

With the as­sis­tance of res­i­dents, the of­fi­cers at­tempt­ed to gain en­try to the house but were un­suc­cess­ful.

Fire ap­pli­ances from the Wright­son Road Fire Sta­tion led by Deputy Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Mar­lon Smith and FS­SO Casti­no al­so re­spond­ed and used sledge­ham­mers and ax­es to force their way in­to the house.

The fire was even­tu­al­ly con­tained and ex­tin­guished and the bod­ies of the three chil­dren were found.

Ezekiel’s body was found in the gallery which was sur­round­ed by bur­glar proof­ing. Eye­wit­ness­es said he was trapped as he tried to get out.

Faith’s body was found on the ground in a front room and the body of three-year-old Kay­den was al­so on the ground in­side the house.

Their bod­ies were tak­en to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre where post-mortems will be done.

Neigh­bour haunt­ed by screams

Speak­ing to the Guardian Me­dia, a neigh­bour, Mr Thomas said the tragedy will stay with him for the rest of his life.

“It’s the screams. The screams I will nev­er for­get.”

He said the chil­dren were trapped in an area of the house which had been se­cured by bur­glar proof­ing.

“They tried to save them. Oh God! If you see them...how they neigh­bours try. Peo­ple were jump­ing the walls to come and bring wa­ter. Peo­ple in their work clothes run out of the of­fice with fire ex­tin­guish­ers in hand to out the fire. All kind of thing. They were able to get the two oth­er chil­dren out. But they were in an­oth­er part of the house that had not been locked up by bur­glar proof­ing so it was eas­i­er to break in and get them out be­fore they were hurt.”

“The fa­ther was try­ing to break the door be­cause Ezekiel was ly­ing on the ground there beg­ging for help. You could have seen him on the ground in the gallery, beg­ging and scream­ing to get out. That was the most heart­break­ing thing I have ever seen. I re­mem­bered see­ing his hands stretch­ing out­side the bur­glar proof­ing bars reach­ing out. The fa­ther who got burnt try­ing to help his son was bawl­ing and cry­ing help­less­ly,” Thomas added.

“I don’t know how the fa­ther will cope with see­ing his child die be­fore his eyes. Nei­ther the moth­er who was at work and left to hur­ry back home and see­ing that three of her chil­dren es­pe­cial­ly her ba­bies die. God help them,” Thomas said.

Fire officers sit on the sidewalk after fighting the house fire that claimed the lives of three children in Rookery Nook, Maraval yesterday.

Anisto Alves

Fa­ther tried to save chil­dren

The fa­ther of the three chil­dren, Troy Burke, had to be hos­pi­talised with first de­grees he sus­tained while at­tempt­ing to res­cue his chil­dren. The moth­er was al­so sent to the hos­pi­tal for med­ical care. Oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers were too dis­traught to speak.

Troy Burke, was filmed with a sledge­ham­mer try­ing to break down the bur­glar-proof­ing un­til when the heat be­came so in­tense peo­ple on the scene had to hold him back.

A se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer who worked at the RBC Roy­al Bank’s car park said he too tried to help when Ezekiel shout­ed out to him.

“When I went to open the car park the old­est boy called out to me and said, ‘Oh God help me.’ When I looked around the dou­bles man and my­self run to­wards him to help him but the fire was too blaz­ing and too close to him that we had to take a hose to wet him down. We then went to the bank to get the most fire ex­tin­guish­ers we can get to try and out the fire. We man­aged to res­cue two of them. But the fire went up in split sec­onds that we couldn’t get to the oth­ers. While I was wet­ting down the boy part of the ceil­ing with fire fall on him.”

The se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer said he knew the chil­dren well as he de­scribed them as his own and said they used to vis­it him while he worked in the car park.

The dou­bles ven­dor said he al­so knew the chil­dren well and added that they all lived like fam­i­ly.

“We tried to break the back door but didn’t re­alise that it had a bur­glar proof­ing to the back of it al­so. The hon­est truth, I am numb...it is not some­thing nice. I have been sell­ing dou­bles about 12 years and the chil­dren on­ly came a few years ago but we al­ways mix­ing and min­gling with them.”

CFO thanks neigh­bours for help

Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Arnold Bris­to who was al­so on the scene of­fered con­do­lences to the Burke fam­i­ly.

“This is not the kind of thing that any­one ever ex­pects to hap­pen, nor is it some­thing that any­one ever wants to deal with. It was a sad thing to hear and re­spond to, so I can on­ly imag­ine how the fam­i­ly is feel­ing and cop­ing,” Bris­to said.

He said the Fire Ser­vice was yet to de­ter­mine what caused the fire but as­sured that in­ves­ti­ga­tors will work hard to de­ter­mine what caused it.

Bris­to thanked neigh­bours and all who helped for their ef­forts.

“From our in­for­ma­tion, every­one re­spond­ed. No one hes­i­tat­ed. I want to thank God for the as­sis­tance for the neigh­bours and the lo­cal dou­bles ven­dor who ren­dered im­me­di­ate aid up­on be­com­ing aware of the fire, and hear­ing the cries of the chil­dren in the build­ing,” Bris­to said.

Bris­to urged peo­ple to in­stall smoke de­tec­tors and al­so en­sure that there are ways of es­cape should any tragedy strike.

“Peo­ple spend too much time se­cur­ing them­selves that we don’t make the ef­fort to en­sure that if an in­ci­dent like this oc­curs we can get out safe­ly so per­sons need to re­con­sid­er how we do our se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ment re­gard­ing bur­glar proof­ing and the use of smoke de­tec­tors and even keep­ing an ex­tin­guish­er in your home is im­por­tant,” Bris­to added.

Spectators look on as Fire officers put out the house fire that claimed the lives of three children at their home at Rookery Nook, Maraval yesterday.

Anisto Alves

Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty sad­dened

The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go who al­so re­spond­ed to the tragedy said it is deeply sad­dened by the trag­ic death of the three chil­dren and ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, friends and the com­mu­ni­ty.

The Au­thor­i­ty, in a re­lease, said its Emer­gency Re­sponse Team has joined oth­er agen­cies with­in the Child Pro­tec­tion Sec­tor to of­fer sup­port to the par­ents and their two sur­viv­ing chil­dren.

Nichola Har­vey-Mitchell, di­rec­tor of the Au­thor­i­ty said the loss of the chil­dren is dev­as­tat­ing for the fam­i­lies and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and added that the Au­thor­i­ty “will do its part to sup­port the fam­i­ly.”

“The Au­thor­i­ty has been col­lab­o­rat­ing with stake­hold­ers to pro­vide the nec­es­sary in­ter­ven­tions that will al­low the fam­i­ly to be­gin the process of heal­ing,” Har­vey-Mitchell added.

Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials of­fer con­do­lences

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s line Min­is­ters, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and friends of Ezekiel Burke, a Form Five pupil of Blan­chisseuse Sec­ondary School.

The Min­istry said of­fi­cers of the Stu­dents Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion (SSSD) have been con­tact­ed and have al­ready sched­uled vir­tu­al coun­selling ses­sions for Ezekiels’s sis­ter Jene­cia, the rest of his fam­i­ly and his class­mates.

Prin­ci­pal of the Blan­chisseuse Sec­ondary School, Hashim John­son has al­so con­tact­ed of­fi­cers of the Em­ploy­ees As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (EAP) to pro­vide coun­selling for the teach­ers of the school.

John­son said Ezekiel Burke was a well-man­nered, am­bi­tious, and re­spect­ful stu­dent and will be great­ly missed by his peers and teach­ers.

Ezekiel was de­scribed as an ex­em­plary young man and proud­ly rep­re­sent­ed his school at both the un­der-16 and se­nior di­vi­sions of the Pow­er­Gen Sec­ondary Schools’ Crick­et League com­pe­ti­tions in the North Zone.

WPC Jack-George is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Ezekiel Burke