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Monday, July 14, 2025

Bush fire claims life

of retiree

by

Kevon Felmine
2266 days ago
20190430
The burnt ruins of Michael Chadee home which was destroyed by fire on Monday.

The burnt ruins of Michael Chadee home which was destroyed by fire on Monday.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

The dry sea­son proved to be fa­tal for La Ro­maine re­tiree Michael Chadee whose burnt corpse was found in­side his home on Mon­day evening.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said Chadee, 67, was prob­a­bly asleep when a bush fire along Al­la­har Street de­stroyed his wood­en and con­crete house. An au­top­sy yes­ter­day said he died from in­hal­ing tox­ic fumes, con­sis­tent with fire.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, of­fi­cers from the Mon Re­pos Fire Sta­tion re­spond­ed and put out the fire.

Neigh­bours said Chadee had left home dur­ing the morn­ing pe­ri­od. The fire start­ed short­ly af­ter lunch and around 3.30 pm when fire­fight­ers re­spond­ed to an­oth­er re­port of fire along Al­la­har Street, they had to cov­er a wider area. As they swept through the bushy ter­rain, they dis­cov­ered Chadee’s home where he was found him dead in­side. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the house had no elec­tric­i­ty.

A neigh­bour said no one saw when Chadee re­turned home and sus­pect­ed that he might have been sleep­ing when the fire reached his home.

Chadee’s nephew Ramesh Ram­sawak said rel­a­tives had on­ly learned about his death yes­ter­day and were in shock. Speak­ing at his home in Fyz­abad yes­ter­day, Ram­sawak said his un­cle had sur­vived ill­ness and surgery and it was sad to see him die like that.

“He lived qui­et­ly. This is a shock for me. I know he was good af­ter his surgery and for him to burn in his house like that, some­thing has to be wrong,” Ram­sawak said.

He said his un­cle owned a pho­to stu­dio be­fore he left Trinidad to live abroad with his fam­i­ly. Years lat­er, Chadee re­turned to Trinidad with­out his fam­i­ly and worked at a mo­bile phone out­let. When he turned 65, he was not able to get his gov­ern­ment pen­sion and took up con­struc­tion jobs. (KF)


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