While their com­rades were par­tic­i­pat­ing in yes­ter­day's gold­en ju­bilee pa­rade, a group of fire of­fi­cers were called in­to ac­tion to save an 87-year-old Bel­mont grand­moth­er's burn­ing home. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, around 10.30 am, rel­a­tives of Al­ma Holdip no­ticed smoke com­ing from the ground floor of her two-storey home in Carr Street, Bel­mont. Fire ten­ders from the Bel­mont sta­tion ar­rived at the scene short­ly af­ter and as­sist­ed in evac­u­at­ing the six fam­i­ly mem­bers, among them a sev­en-year-old boy. The fire, which gut­ted the sim­ple house, was ex­tin­guished in less than an hour. When T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the area yes­ter­day, res­i­dents were as­sist­ing the fam­i­ly to sal­vage items from the charred re­mains of their home.

Holdip said that her fam­i­ly had lost all their be­long­ings but were hap­py to be alive. "We just had to run out of the house. We didn't get to save any­thing...Right now we don't even have a shoe to wear," she said. Her rel­a­tives es­ti­mat­ed their loss­es to be well over $1 mil­lion. Sev­er­al res­i­dents com­mend­ed the fire and po­lice of­fi­cers who re­spond­ed to the blaze, thank­ing them for pre­vent­ing the fire from spread­ing to neigh­bour­ing build­ings.

Fire of­fi­cers are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the blaze was caused by an elec­tri­cal mal­func­tion at Holdip's home.