Family Loses Home to Fire
A fire quickly spread through the house of the Ford family on Allenby Street in Belize City last Friday night. Tanya Ford, a single mother, was at work when she received the bad news by text. While no one was injured, Ford lost all her belongings in the blaze which was caused by a lit candle. Andrea Polanco reports.
Andrea Polanco, Reporting
Only the burnt remnants of the top floor of this family’s house remain after a fire tore through the wooden structure. The scorched walls and charred contents, including furniture and appliances, are evidence of Friday night’s fire. The occupants of the house were not at home at the time of the fire. Tanya Ford says when she arrived the house was already ablaze.
Tanya Ford, Fire Victim
“I had just gone into work for six o’clock. I left my cousin and my daughter at home, but my cousin was going to work later that night. I had just gone to work actually. I got a call saying that my house was on fire and I started grabbing everything and then I got another text asking, ‘where are you?’ and then I figured it must be true because I thought it was a prank at the time and I left work. When I got here I smelled the smoke and saw it from when I was coming over and there were people outside. My daughter wasn’t inside at the time, so nobody got hurt which is good. Thank God for that.”
Ford, a working single mother, is relieved that her daughter wasn’t injured. The minor had left the house shortly before it caught fire. By the time Ford got home, quick response from the fire department prevented the fire from extending to the lower flat.
Tanya Ford
Tanya Ford
“She had gone to the shop to buy something to eat because she was actually home alone for a short period of time. My boyfriend was coming from work and my cousin had just gone to work, so it was maybe fifteen or twenty minutes that she was here by herself. She was supposed to go to my friend’s house until he came but she went to buy something because she was hungry and within that short space of time that’s when it happened.”
Andrea Polanco
“And the Fire Department and everyone else responded quickly?”
Tanya Ford
“Yes because my neighbors who live behind and my friends they called 911 and then she went to get my friends to call me and by the time I left work the fire department was already inside the house distinguishing the fire.”
Andrea Polanco
“The fire was put out quickly?”
Tanya Ford
“Very quickly.”
But this is what the scene looked like that night when fire fighters arrived to high flames and thick smoke emanating from the upper flat of the house. The fire, which spread rapidly across the upstairs, destroyed two bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom and living room. It was started by a candle left unattended.
Tanya Ford
“A candle caught flame on something and then it engulfed inside the bathroom and in my daughter’s bedroom.”
Andrea Polanco
“So it was the entire upper portion of the house that was on fire?”
Tanya Ford
“Yes. Upstairs. The bathroom and my daughter’s bedroom were destroyed. Everything else inside the house, the heat destroyed that.”
Andrea Polanco
“Do you guys know the value, of what you’ve lost, so far?”
Tanya Ford
“No. I am waiting for my mom to come because it’s my mom’s house and she knows what she paid for what was upstairs. I live downstairs and nothing was destroyed because the fire department out the fire real quick.”
Andrea Polanco
“So, I take it nothing was insured?”
Tanya Ford
“Nothing was insured.”
Ford and her family had been using candles for a few days because they didn’t have electricity at the time. They were in the process of getting a new meter.
Tanya Ford
“The fire department, they told me that it started from inside the bathroom. We were using candles because we had the older meter and the wires were burning, like they were eating out and then B.E.L. said that we needed to change meter to one of the newer versions. So, we were supposed to remove the meter box and change all the wires and rewire everything. I was saving up the money and had just left it downstairs that same day, so I didn’t get robbed. So I could repair everything and they would return our light after the inspection, so we were using candle. I think that’s what started it.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Andrea Polanco.
If you’d like to assist the family, you can call 662-1254 or 600-7974.
