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Saturday, July 26, 2025

Fire razes 11 fishing shacks on Sando Wharf

by

Radhica De Silva
2349 days ago
20190219

Eleven fish­er­men’s huts at King’s Wharf, San Fer­nan­do, went up in flames on Mon­day night.

The fire start­ed around 10.30 pm, while most of the fish­er­men were out at sea.

Eight-month preg­nant Pa­tri­cia Mo­hammed, who has been liv­ing on the wharf since De­cem­ber last year, said she heard two men ar­gu­ing and then the fire broke out.

When the flames start­ed rav­aging the wood­en huts, Mo­hammed said she ran for her life. Un­cer­tain whether any­one was sleep­ing in­side the shacks, Mo­hammed said she tried call­ing the Fire Ser­vice but there was no cell­phone sig­nal. De­spite her con­di­tion, she be­gan run­ning to­wards the city where she called for help. The Fire Ser­vice re­spond­ed prompt­ly but by the time fire­fight­ers ar­rived at least 11 shacks were ful­ly ablaze. Two ve­hi­cles, boat en­gines, house­hold ap­pli­ances, fish stor­age fa­cil­i­ties and tools were de­stroyed. There were no in­juries.

Mo­hammed said she de­pend­ed on the fish­er­men to sup­port her af­ter she was thrown out of her home at Rousil­lac.

"I am thank­ful that no­body died in the fire but we want some help be­cause we lost a lot," Mo­hammed said.

Fish­er­man Dhan­raj Goolcha­ran said he was out at sea when he saw the fire.

"I knew it was my place. I could tell based on the po­si­tion of those trees," Goolcha­ran said, point­ing in the dis­tance.

He said pulled up his nets, alert­ed oth­er fish­er­men and hur­ried back home.

"When I got here the car was razed. I packed up my things and I left. I could not bear to tell my wife any­thing," Goolcha­ran added.

The fish­er­men use the shacks to store their valu­ables and some­times af­ter a long night of fish­ing they would rest in the huts.

Pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Fish­ing Co­op­er­a­tive Sal­im Gool said the fish­er­men sus­pect­ed ar­son. He called for a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fire, which caused over $200,000 in loss­es, adding that they should be giv­en fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to buy back their boats, nets and en­gines.

An­oth­er fish­er­man, Er­rol Ranghill, said it was not the first strange fire to have oc­curred over the past few months.

"Peo­ple are de­lib­er­ate­ly try­ing to burn down the shacks be­cause they want us to get out of the wharf. They have a beau­ti­fi­ca­tion project planned and they want us out. We ex­pe­ri­enced three fires over the past five months but each time we put them out. This time they caught us off-guard," Ranghill said.

He added that be­fore any beau­ti­fi­ca­tion project could go on, all the fish­er­men from the wharf must be re­lo­cat­ed.

"We have been here for gen­er­a­tions. I want to see if they will al­low us to re­build the shacks," Ranghill added.

Re­grel­lo ready to help

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, San Fer­nan­do May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo said the as­ser­tion that the State had some­thing to do with the fire was ridicu­lous.

"That is go­ing from the sub­lime to the ridicu­lous. No­body is try­ing to burn them out. Why would we do that? They are hum­ble fam­i­lies in dire need of as­sis­tance. They have been liv­ing on the wharf for their en­tire life­time. Why would we as a car­ing Gov­ern­ment and car­ing cor­po­ra­tion do some­thing like that?" Re­grel­lo added.

He said the cor­po­ra­tion has been very ac­com­mo­dat­ing to the fish­er­men.

"We have gone against the ad­vice of some and tak­en ac­count of their plight be­cause of the sen­si­tiv­i­ty of this mat­ter," Re­grel­lo said. He said he will be hap­py to ac­com­mo­date the fish­er­men for a meet­ing in the near fu­ture.


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