Christmas celebrations were marred for a San Fernando family yesterday, when a raging fire destroyed a $2 million house at Gransaul Street, leaving nine people homeless. The fire started around noon while Nadine Shah was asleep in her bedroom. While firefighters battled the blaze, a bare-footed Shah was hurriedly making a head count of her family. Standing in the rain, Shah said, "I will spend Christmas crying this year. I don't even know what we will do now."
Shah said she was sound asleep in her bedroom when neighbours began shouting, "Fire! Fire!" "When I looked out, my mother's bedroom was already blazing." She explained that the cause of the fire was unknown. "We did not put up any lights for Christmas. We had nothing on the stove, no heater and we do not know how this happened." A neighbour who was seen crying at the roadside said flames were coming from the roof.
"I don't know how much more this family can take. They already experienced so much tragedy in the last few years," the neighbour wept. Firefighters from the Mon Repos Fire Headquarters and the San Fernando fire sub-station arrived within minutes and prevented the fires from spreading to the nearby houses. Students from the College of Science Technology and Applied Arts of T&T, also ran out of their classrooms to assist.
Shah's daughter Sinead, 22, wept while a female police officer tried to comfort her. Pensioner Molly, 74, who owned the house, arrived a short while later. She said she was attending a Christmas luncheon when she got the news that her home was on fire. "We are just happy that everybody got out of the house," Molly said, holding the hands of her ten-year-old grandson Adam. Molly explained that all of their valuables including clothing, furniture, cash and a lap top which they had not yet paid for, were destroyed.
Fire destroys Gransaul St home
Over the past three years, the Shah family experienced other tragedies. On January 28, 2011, Shah's 12-year-old grandson Andre was found hanging from a metal shower curtain rod inside the family's bathroom. Andre was a Standard Four pupil of the San Fernando Boys' Roman Catholic School. His death was ruled as accidental.
On September 4, 2010, Molly's son Gary Shah, 35, and his friend Anderson Edmund, 22, of Lodge Road, Claxton Bay were found dead in a gold coloured Mazda 323 vehicle at Penal. Their bodies bore several gunshot wounds. Shah, who was in the driver's seat, was shot in his face and chest. Police believe some men followed Shah and murdered him, following a dispute at a popular bar. Anyone wanting to help the Shah family can call 725-9974.