RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A fire has left a Princes Town fam­i­ly home­less and stripped of their on­ly source of in­come just days be­fore the new year, forc­ing them to face 2026 with noth­ing but un­cer­tain­ty and heart­break.

Among the home­less are In­di­rah Boodram-Chadee, 40, her hus­band Bri­an Chadee, 49, and their daugh­ter Anas­ta­sia Chadee, 20, of 355 St Julien Road, Princes Town. The blaze, which erupt­ed around 2 pm on Box­ing Day, de­stroyed their home and the fam­i­ly’s long-es­tab­lished wood­work­ing shop in a mat­ter of min­utes.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, In­di­rah re­called how their lives changed with one phone call.

“We were at a friend’s house hav­ing lunch when our neigh­bour called and told us that the wood­work shop was on fire. When we reached home, the neigh­bours were al­ready try­ing to help, but there was no wa­ter on the lines. We just had to stand there and watch every­thing burn,” she re­called.

She said neigh­bours jumped in­to ac­tion, leap­ing over gates, run­ning hoses and haul­ing buck­ets of wa­ter from near­by tanks in a des­per­ate at­tempt to save some­thing—any­thing.

“They were run­ning back and forth with buck­ets, try­ing to see what they could get out. But it was too much. With­in min­utes, every­thing was gone.”

The fire wiped out not on­ly the fam­i­ly’s house and per­son­al be­long­ings, but al­so their liveli­hood.

“We lost every­thing,” In­di­rah said qui­et­ly. “All the ma­chin­ery in the work­shop, all the fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances in our home, our clothes—every­thing.”

Her hus­band Bri­an Chadee said among the loss­es was a re­cent­ly pur­chased plan­er, a cost­ly in­vest­ment the fam­i­ly had bought as part of their plans to con­tin­ue ex­pand­ing the busi­ness.

Chadee, who has worked in wood­work­ing for over 25 years, de­scribed the shop as the prod­uct of a life­time of sac­ri­fice.

“I start­ed from noth­ing,” he said. “I used to ride a bi­cy­cle to work, saved lit­tle by lit­tle, bought my first tools, then my first ve­hi­cle. Every­thing we had went back in­to build­ing that shop,” he said, wip­ing away tears.

Al­though they spent the night at a friend’s home, Chadee said he re­mains un­cer­tain about what comes next.

“Your home is your home, right now, we don’t even know where we will stay long-term. We’re en­ter­ing the new year with noth­ing,” he said. “No home, no shop, no tools. We’re start­ing from scratch.”

The cause of the fire re­mains un­known. Fire of­fi­cers ar­rived with­in 15 to 20 min­utes of be­ing alert­ed, but by then the flames had al­ready con­sumed the struc­ture.

Mean­while, Chair­man of the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Gowrie Roop­nar­ine, who ar­rived at the fire scene with­in min­utes, said he will pro­vide tem­po­rary em­ploy­ment for Chadee start­ing Mon­day, un­til he is able to get back on his feet.

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Princes Town, Dr Aiy­na Ali, said the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit de­liv­ered a mat­tress to as­sist the af­fect­ed fam­i­ly. She added that she will be in con­tact with Min­is­ter Van­dana Mo­hit and the Self-Help Com­mis­sion to pro­vide fur­ther sup­port.

Dr Ali al­so not­ed that the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has been work­ing to re-es­tab­lish a fire sta­tion in the Princes Town re­gion, which has been af­fect­ed by sev­er­al fires in re­cent times. She said the ex­ist­ing Princes Town Fire Sta­tion can­not be re­paired, and al­ter­na­tive sites are cur­rent­ly be­ing con­sid­ered to house a new fire sta­tion.

Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist the fam­i­ly can call 464-1767 or make do­na­tions to Bri­an Robert Chadee Re­pub­lic Bank, Sav­ings ac­count #940048839731.