Fire wipes out Belize City businessman

Most citizens of Belize City had partied hard over the long post election holiday weekend and were finally catching up on their rest. But in one southside neighbourhood, this morning’s calm was broken by a familiar calamity. Jacqueline Woods reports.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting

Flames, intense heat, smoke and sparks from a downed electrical wire kept people at a distance while fire fighters battled the inferno that erupted at the home and business place of Ian Mendoza on Mahogany Street Extension. The fire started shortly after 2:00 a.m. when the Mendoza family was sound asleep inside their house situated upstairs at the back of the establishment.

Ian Mendoza, Home/Business Owner

“I was upstairs sleeping and I was alarmed by neighbours. The fire was already burning reaching upstairs you can see my curtains scorched. And I woke up in a rush and I tried to phone, but the phone was out and I grabbed my daughter and I ran downstairs.”

The house was spared from major destruction, but there was nothing Mendoza nor the fire fighters could do to save any of his businesses including a grocery, hardware store and laundromat and car that were located in a wooden structure to the front of the family residence. It took between ten and fifteen minutes to contain the blaze, but no sooner than the flames were extinguished, reports started to surface that the fire may have been deliberately set.

Ian Mendoza

“Yes, based on the evidence that I personally examined what took place, and about the hour that I went to sleep, we had a lot of machines in there and at night everything is off. And where the meter is, there is no fire there; the fire didn’t start there. And you could see plainly where gas was thrown.”

Fire Chief Henry Baizar says their preliminary investigation reveals that the fire started from outside the building and there was something unusual about its pattern.

Henry Baizar, Fire Chief

“We believe from what we saw, the fire started from outside of the building. It wasn’t set from inside or it wasn’t started from inside. We looked at all the electrical and there is nothing there to sustain that it was an electrical fire. Normally when a starts, it has an origin and then it burns gradually until it consumes the entire building. In this case, the fire had some sort of help, whether is was gasoline or some sort of fluid, it had some sort of help because the burning is not consistent with the way the fire developed and the way it eventually consumed the building. It burns probably at the bottom, it starts in the middle, it starts on the top, and virtually, I think what happens there is wherever the help was on the building, there’s how the fire started. Actually, it starts burning all over almost at the same time. We don’t see a set pattern how the fire developed, so from that we know that the fire had some sort of a help with some sort of agent that has a way to consume the building that quickly. We actually found a container outside that had some gasoline or something to that effect. We still have it and we will take it for an analysis to see exactly what sort of liquid was in the container.”

But who would want to harm the Mendoza family and burn down their business?

Ian Mendoza

“Obviously dah jealousy. The business is set up between a lot of Chiney and we have expanded massively since and people are glad to support a black man people are realising that they must support our own and buy in Belize.”

Jacqueline Woods

“You’re not blaming the Chinese community for this incident though, or are you?”

Ian Mendoza

“I am.”

But at this point there is no specific evidence to support Mendoza’s claim and the police and fire department have the incident under investigation.

Henry Baizar

“My appeal goes out to the general public, people in the area, if they know anything, let them come out with something and help us in the trying to solve this problem as quick as possible.”

Jacqueline Woods for News 5.

According to police, total damages are estimated at over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It is believed that Mendoza’s residence was covered by insurance. Again, we’d like to thank Lionel Rhamdas for his video images.