SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

shar­lene.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

A blind pen­sion­er was among sev­er­al ten­ants of a build­ing in Port-of-Spain who had to climb through a win­dow to es­cape a fiery death yes­ter­day.

An­ge­lo Joseph, 65, was in his apart­ment in the build­ing on the cor­ner of George and In­de­pen­dence Square North in Port-of-Spain around 1.50 pm yes­ter­day when an­oth­er ten­ant al­leged­ly set the build­ing on fire.

The fire caused traf­fic to back up along In­de­pen­dence Square as a large crowd gath­ered to look on as fire of­fi­cers worked to ex­tin­guish the blaze. Po­lice sought to con­trol the crowd and sev­er­al ten­ants who threat­ened vi­o­lence over the de­struc­tion of their be­long­ings.

In a brief in­ter­view, Joseph, who has been blind since 2013 due to com­pli­ca­tions from di­a­betes, said he smelt smoke and heard a crack­ling sound com­ing from the floor be­neath him while he was say­ing his mid­day prayers.

“I heard some crack­ling be­neath me, that’s down­stairs and the smoke start­ed to in­ten­si­fy. When I opened my door I re­al­ized is fire some­where. I felt the heat to my face,” Joseph told Guardian Me­dia.

He said he ini­tial­ly tried to go down the build­ing’s stair­case but the smoke was too thick.

Clad in on­ly a pair of three-quar­ter pants and a pair of sneak­ers and with his cane to guide him, Joseph made his way to a win­dow to es­cape.

“I get to the win­dow and I climb over. The win­dow is about six feet off the floor so I jumped over. I pushed my body over and walked up a lit­tle ramp to get my­self on the roof…so I know once I am on top of the roof I am fair­ly safe,” he said.

Short­ly af­ter, an­oth­er ten­ant flee­ing the blaze took a sim­i­lar path and found Joseph on the build­ing’s roof. The man guid­ed him across to the roof of an ad­ja­cent build­ing, where the two were able to es­cape us­ing the fire es­cape.

Ac­cord­ing to Joseph, there were at least eight oth­er apart­ments in the build­ing - which was iden­ti­fied for com­mer­cial use by large signs on the out­side.

He said the ‘apart­ments’ were small and cramped, adding, “Is just like every­body has a cell. It is just that you have a key for your own cell, the way it was it be­came like a ghet­to.”

Act­ing Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Mar­lon Smith vis­it­ed the scene and sig­nalled an in­ten­tion to launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the con­di­tions at the build­ing.

“At the en­trance of the build­ing there is a clear sign that says it is a com­mer­cial build­ing so clear­ly if res­i­dents were in­side, it was con­trary to what was stat­ed out­side the build­ing. We are fo­cus­ing on fire fight­ing at this time. We will have to look at that there­after,” Smith said.

He said when his of­fi­cers ar­rived on the scene, they were told there were sev­er­al peo­ple trapped in­side.

But those peo­ple were able to get them­selves to safe­ty and Smith said the blaze was con­trolled quick­ly.

He said a cause had not yet been de­ter­mined.

But up to late last evening, Besson Street Po­lice said a 41-year-old hair­dress­er was in cus­tody for al­leged­ly set­ting fire to the build­ing where she rents space for her hair sa­lon.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, the woman got in­to an ar­gu­ment with the land­lord of the build­ing af­ter her sa­lon was bur­gled on Mon­day night.

Po­lice were called in around 1.15 pm yes­ter­day af­ter the build­ing’s land­lord re­port­ed be­ing at­tacked by the woman.

The land­lord said the woman’s flat iron and sev­er­al hair prod­ucts were stolen on Mon­day night. Po­lice were told the hair­dress­er de­mand­ed the land­lord ei­ther ‘get back’ the stolen items or re­place them.

When the land­lord re­fused, the hair­dress­er al­leged­ly phys­i­cal­ly as­sault­ed her be­fore set­ting the build­ing on fire.

The land­lord was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment while the hair­dress­er was ar­rest­ed.

She is ex­pect­ed to be for­mal­ly charged in the com­ing days.

PC Chin­pire of the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.