Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Three busi­ness­es were af­fect­ed by a fire that broke out at the Bam­boo Set­tle­ment No 3, Val­sayn, on Thurs­day evening.

Around 5 pm, Aron Roop­nar­ine, own­er of NFS Au­to—a new and used for­eign car parts deal­er­ship lo­cat­ed at Bam­boo Boule­vard, 2nd Street—closed and se­cured his busi­ness be­fore leav­ing for his home.

At ap­prox­i­mate­ly 7.15 pm, how­ev­er, res­i­dents alert­ed Roop­nar­ine that his ware­house was on fire.

On ar­riv­ing at the scene, Roop­nar­ine saw his busi­ness, mea­sur­ing rough­ly 60 by 40 feet, com­plete­ly en­gulfed in flames.

As­sis­tant Chief Fire Of­fi­cer of the North­ern Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice, Gary Sookdeo, said the Fire Ser­vice re­spond­ed from Port-of-Spain, San Juan and Tu­na­puna sta­tions.

Sookdeo said when crews ar­rived on the scene, the af­fect­ed struc­tures were al­ready to­tal­ly en­gulfed in flames.

He said the prompt re­sponse helped fire­fight­ers con­tain the fire and pre­vent fur­ther dam­age.

No in­juries were re­port­ed.

Busi­ness own­er Damien Flan­ders said he re­ceived a call from a friend short­ly be­fore 2 am in­form­ing him that a fire had bro­ken out near his place of busi­ness.

When he ar­rived at the scene, fire of­fi­cers were al­ready there and had brought the blaze un­der con­trol.

Flan­ders said his busi­ness was not af­fect­ed by the fire; how­ev­er, three busi­ness­es lo­cat­ed in front of his prop­er­ty sus­tained dam­age.

The to­tal val­ue of dam­age to the prop­er­ties is yet to be as­sessed.