Sascha Wil­son

Moth­er of three Kem­ba Mor­ris tried to save the lives of her fam­i­ly when fire broke out at their Siparia home yes­ter­day morn­ing, but sad­ly paid the ul­ti­mate price when she and her youngest daugh­ter nev­er made it out.

Mor­ris, 42, and Za­ya, eight, were found crouched to­geth­er mere feet from the back door when the fire was even­tu­al­ly ex­tin­guished and fire­fight­ers went in­to the gut­ted home yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Mor­ris’ two oth­er chil­dren, ages 21 and 16, her younger sis­ter Dana Phillip and an­oth­er per­son, iden­ti­fied as Jamieyel Pan­tor, 37, sur­vived, but the or­deal left them trau­ma­tised.

The tragedy has sent shock­waves through the qui­et com­mu­ni­ty of Quinam Road, with neigh­bours and rel­a­tives mourn­ing their loss.

Res­i­dents al­so called for a prop­er­ly func­tion­ing fire sta­tion in the dis­trict, since the Siparia Fire Sta­tion, which is mere min­utes away from the home, did not have a func­tion­ing ten­der to re­spond. As a re­sult, a ten­der from the Pe­nal Fire Sta­tion re­spond­ed but ar­rived al­most an hour af­ter the trou­ble call.

The fire start­ed short­ly af­ter 5 am. Mor­ris’s sis­ter Alana Phillip, a po­lice of­fi­cer, said she was not sure how Mor­ris was alert­ed that the house was on fire, but she im­me­di­ate­ly raised an alarm.

A neigh­bour was pass­ing by and broke a win­dow to alert the fam­i­ly that the house was on fire.

How­ev­er, Mor­ris, who usu­al­ly slept in the front bed­room, was al­ready in the process of wak­ing up every­one.

When Mor­ris’ two oth­er chil­dren, her sis­ter and Pan­tor got out, they re­alised Mor­ris and Za­ya were still in the house.

How­ev­er, a res­cue at­tempt was im­pos­si­ble, as the fire had al­ready en­gulfed the en­tire house.

Yes­ter­day, Phillip said, “She (Mor­ris) was right there by the back­door but like the smoke just over­whelm them be­cause they found them crouched to­geth­er in the cor­ri­dor, the back door was right there.”

She said Mor­ris’ son is asth­mat­ic and her oth­er daugh­ter suf­fers from anx­i­ety. Af­ter get­ting out the house, they were tak­en to the Siparia Health Fa­cil­i­ty to be ex­am­ined and treat­ed.

Phillip said her sis­ter worked as a cashier at a bak­ery and was a lov­ing and qui­et per­son.

“Noth­ing don’t both­er her. You can get her to do any­thing for you.”

Phillip said they did not know what caused the fire that de­stroyed her moth­er’s home and Mor­ris’ car. Their moth­er lives abroad.

Vis­i­bly shak­en and up­set, Lor­na Gon­za­les, 83, who lives op­po­site Mor­ris’ home, was not hap­py with the re­sponse of the fire ser­vice. She re­called that around 5.15 am, she was alert­ed that Mor­ris’ house was on fire.

“When I come out here (gallery), I see fire in the draw­ing room. I call­ing the fire sta­tion 990 be­cause I hear (Roger) Alexan­der say 990 is emer­gency. I call them, we get the mes­sage al­ready.

“They reach here five (min­utes) to six. I say it have peo­ple in the house, they say yes, they say they get the mes­sage. They get the mes­sage and al­lyuh can’t reach. Siparia have a fire sta­tion down the road, bun it down, it not good.”

Had fire­fight­ers re­spond­ed soon­er, Gon­za­les said she be­lieved the dam­age would not been so ex­ten­sive.

“I am sick about it be­cause the car would not have get burn be­cause you know how long it take be­fore it reach to the car and the whole house would not have got burnt like that.”

She said Mor­ris and her chil­dren vis­it­ed her home on March 19 to cel­e­brate her birth­day.

“You see that child who burn, that wor­ry­ing me. The moth­er and the daugh­ter, that hit me, that girl is so nice to me here, any­thing they come across to see about me.”

Gon­za­les al­so claimed the fire truck had to leave the scene to re­plen­ish wa­ter twice.

“When they come, they come with a truck with half wa­ter, it can’t even wet down the whole house,” she claimed.

She said there was a fire hy­drant a short dis­tance away but it was not work­ing.

“Is years they have not come to check that hy­drant,” she lament­ed.

Gon­za­les com­plained that the Siparia Fire Sta­tion does not have a work­ing fire ten­der.

“They could do bet­ter than that in Siparia. To see both of them get kill, it too hard. It hit me hard, my pres­sure gone up,” she lament­ed.

Mor­ris’ cousin Co­lette Daniel was among sev­er­al rel­a­tives who gath­ered at the scene. She said their deaths were a great loss to the en­tire fam­i­ly.

“I re­al­ly have no words to ex­plain, to un­der­stand how some­thing like this could have hap­pened,” she said.

Lament­ing that the fam­i­ly is still try­ing to make sense of the tragedy, she de­scribed Mor­ris as an easy go­ing and fun per­son.

She said Za­ya was al­so loved by every­one.

“Za­ya is a light. She could not stay qui­et, al­ways on the go, play­ful, lov­ing, a sweet, sweet child.”

Adding that she was full of life, Daniel said, “The irony is that she hasn’t even start­ed to live.”

A teacher at Za­ya’s school re­called see­ing her at the school’s East­er Bon­net Pa­rade on Fri­day. She de­scribed her as a help­ful child.

Mean­while, As­sis­tant Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Ansar Ali said they have been re­spond­ing to hun­dreds of bush fires and about three or four days ago, the ten­der at the Siparia Fire Sta­tion broke down.

He said it is now un­der­go­ing re­pairs in the En­gi­neer­ing Sec­tion at the Mon Re­pos Fire Sta­tion in San Fer­nan­do.

There­fore, a ten­der from the Pe­nal Fire Sta­tion had to re­spond to the fire.

Re­gard­ing com­plaints about the ten­der hav­ing in­suf­fi­cient wa­ter, he said it is not un­usu­al for the of­fi­cers to have to re­plen­ish the wa­ter tank dur­ing an op­er­a­tion.

Deny­ing Gon­za­les’ claim that the hy­drant was not work­ing, how­ev­er, he said it was func­tion­al but if the wa­ter pres­sure was in­ad­e­quate then they would have had to find an al­ter­na­tive sup­ply.

Of­fi­cers of the Fire Pre­ven­tion Unit at the Mon Re­pos Sta­tion are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the cause of the blaze, while of­fi­cers from the Siparia Po­lice Sta­tion are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the fire.