Fire destroys house; arson suspected
A fire this morning on Neal Pen Road has left a house almost totally destroyed and its owner out on the street. Jacqueline Woods reports on a tragedy that may not have been an accident.
Cecil Emmanuel, Fire Victim
“No, I no save nothing, a boy just gave me this pants. I come out with this shirt and my draws, nothing save, everything gone.”
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
There was not enough time for seventy-year-old Cecil Emmanuel to save any of his possessions, but only to quickly get out of the burning building and away from the fire.
Emmanuel says since Friday he has not been feeling well and was home resting when the blaze started. According to Emmanuel he had just let a young lady inside the house to do laundry for his stepson and had returned to his bedroom when he heard someone shout.
Cecil Emmanuel
“When I laid down in there, I heard those guys say smoke is in there. When I gone and pushed the door, fire was coming through. I can’t do nothing.”
It did not take long for fire fighters to arrive. However as they battled with the fire and intense smoke, several anxious bystanders at one point actually wrestled with a fireman for the hose to get the job done themselves.
Once the fire had been extinguished, fire officials started their work of trying to determine what started the blaze. Emmanuel is suspicious about the fire, which started in a back room where his stepson stayed. He gave his own reasons why he suspects it may be arson.
Cecil Emmanuel
“Only me one use to live there, but now the lady had a son and he was fighting with me to get into the house. For all these years I’ve been living here all by myself from 1995.”
Jacqueline Woods
“So what, you believe the fire was deliberately set?”
Cecil Emmanuel
“Well I will tell you what. I no say he send somebody to do it, but a young lady come while I was laying in my bed, because I am not feeling good so I lay down in my bed. And a young lady came and said he said fi mek she come and wash his clothes for him. So I open the door and I gone back in my room.”
Emmanuel says the young lady had to go into his stepson’s room to get the clothes and it was shortly afterwards that the fire started in the stepson’s room.
At this time, fire officials say the evidence suggests that the fire was deliberately set and they have called in the police to assist in the investigation. Jacqueline Woods reporting for News 5.
According to fire officials, the police are also investigating a previous report that involved a misunderstanding between Emmanuel’s stepson, Russel Neal, and the unidentified young woman who went to the house just before the blaze started. The two-storey wooden house was insured for seventy thousand dollars.
