RALPH BAN­WARIE

A fam­i­ly of five was made home­less af­ter their $60,000 home was burnt to ash­es on Mon­day night.

The fire al­so de­stroyed a ve­hi­cle worth $35,000 and killed two dogs and a par­rot.

Own­er of the house, Nigel Rose told Guardian Me­dia he left his Rail­way Road Ex­ten­sion home in a rel­a­tive’s ve­hi­cle around 10.45 pm on Mon­day night in com­pa­ny with his three chil­dren, to drop his wife on the East­ern Main Road to get to work.

On his re­turn around 11:10 pm he saw his house on fire.

Leav­ing his three chil­dren in the car he rushed to save the par­rot but was un­suc­cess­ful be­cause of the heat and rag­ing fire.

Neigh­bours said they saw smoke com­ing from the house and with­in a few min­utes the house was on fire, ran out of their homes to as­sist, but the house was al­ready en­gulfed in flames.

A fire unit from San­gre Grande Fire Sta­tion re­spond­ed, but they were un­able to save the house.

How­ev­er, the fire of­fi­cers were able to con­tain the fire from spread­ing to near­by hous­es.

Rose said on­ly three weeks ago he bought a ve­hi­cle cost­ing $35,000 to ply for hire (PH) as this was his on­ly means of em­ploy­ment.

It was that ve­hi­cle that was de­stroyed in the blaze.

Point­ing in the di­rec­tion of his house, he said he lost every­thing from fur­ni­ture to ap­pli­ances, cloth­ing, chil­dren books and uni­forms.

“All that re­mains are the clothes we were wear­ing when we left home ear­li­er,” he said.

Coun­cil­lor Nas­sar Ho­sein, lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tive vis­it­ed the Rose fam­i­ly along with mem­bers of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress To­co/ San­gre Grande ex­ec­u­tive and are all work­ing to get some as­sis­tance for the fam­i­ly.

Fire of­fi­cers could not as­cer­tain the cause of the fire but await a re­port fro the fire in­spec­tor.