Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Three house fires, which oc­curred in a week, in­clud­ing one which led to the death of a home­own­er, have reignit­ed calls for a fire sta­tion in the Princes Town/Moru­ga dis­trict. The lat­est blaze left An­tho­ny Ja­cob, his wife, and 12-year-old son count­ing their loss­es af­ter the up­per floor of their Fifth Com­pa­ny Vil­lage home was de­stroyed while they were at church on Car­ni­val Sun­day.

Al­though his broth­er and the res­i­dents tried to con­tain the blaze un­til the fire ten­der ar­rived, the up­per floor of the house was de­stroyed. “I must say thank God for the res­i­dents, they came out and as­sist­ed… and keep the whole house from burn­ing down,” he said. They al­so helped en­sure that his par­ents, aged 78 and 74, who live down­stairs, es­caped un­harmed.

For­tu­nate­ly, Ja­cob said a fire ten­der was in Princes Town on an­oth­er call and re­spond­ed with­in a rea­son­able time. Oth­er­wise, he be­lieves, if he had to wait for a ten­der from Pe­nal or Mon Re­pos, the en­tire prop­er­ty would have been de­stroyed.

Ja­cob, 46, said his son, who will be writ­ing the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment ex­am this year, lost his school sup­plies. “Every­thing is lost. My wife is with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, her stuff al­so gone, every­thing gone, doc­u­ments, every­thing gone.”

Ja­cob said the Moru­ga dis­trict ur­gent­ly needs a fire sta­tion be­cause of the size of the con­stituen­cy, but added that if that is not pos­si­ble, a sta­tion in Princes Town would be the next best op­tion. He ex­pressed con­cern, how­ev­er, that au­thor­i­ties are not mov­ing quick­ly enough to re­place the Princes Town Fire Sta­tion, which was shut down near­ly two years ago.

“They should al­ready start the process, al­ready show at least they start some­thing. At least one should be done com­plete­ly, prob­a­bly in the Princes Town area or down in this area. By the time we take the next two, three years, God for­bid, more house will be done.”

Re­flect­ing on the emo­tion­al toll, Ja­cob said, “I nev­er thought this would have hap­pen to me. You see­ing it on movies, you see it hap­pen to peo­ple, but when you ac­tu­al­ly in it, you can’t ex­plain that feel­ing to lose every­thing, and you have to start all over. It re­al heart­break­ing to me and the rest of the res­i­dents who it hap­pened (to).”

Un­cer­tain how to move for­ward from this tragedy, Ja­cob, a welder, said they would ac­cept any help they could get. “I ap­pre­ci­ate all the help we can get.” While the cause of the blaze is still be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed, any­one will­ing to as­sist the fam­i­ly can con­tact 382-3394.

The blaze oc­curred just a mile away from where 76-year-old Bernadette Guer­rero died in a fire at her Preau Vil­lage home two days pri­or. An­oth­er fam­i­ly was dis­placed days ear­li­er in a house fire in the St Mary’s Vil­lage area.

On her Face­book page, Moru­ga/Table­land MP and Tourism Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin ac­knowl­edged the re­cent spate of fires, say­ing the past week had been “heart­break­ing” for the con­stituen­cy, fol­low­ing three house fires. She added that her “thoughts and prayers are with the af­fect­ed fam­i­lies dur­ing this ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult time.”

She as­sured that she is “ac­tive­ly work­ing with the rel­e­vant agen­cies to en­sure that im­me­di­ate as­sis­tance is pro­vid­ed to those im­pact­ed” and that she is co­or­di­nat­ing with the line min­is­ter to ad­dress is­sues sur­round­ing the Princes Town Fire Sta­tion. She al­so re­newed her call for a fire ten­der to be placed with­in her con­stituen­cy.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing in­to all three in­ci­dents.