Weekend fires in Belize City and San Pedro

There were two fires over the weekend. In Belize City a Sunday afternoon blaze on Freetown Road caused a scare in the neighbourhood when it came very close to a drug store. The fire reportedly started shortly before three p.m. at an abandoned wooden house at the corner of Kelly Street and Freetown Road and for a moment threatened the Freetown Drug Store. Owner of the business, Raul Acevedo, says the news came as a shocker to him and fire officials could not immediately determine the cause of the blaze.

Raul Acevedo, Owns Freetown Drug Store
“I mi deh home di relax when somebody call me and tell me seh dta di building next door to di drug store mi deh pan fire right and I run come. When I come I si di whole building deh pan blaze.”

Marion Ali
“But nothing got affected?”

Raul Acevedo
“Nothing got affected. The drug store got only slight water damage but apart from dat everything straight wid di drug store. Nobody deh eena dah house. Da mi wah vacant house. Wah guy mi live eena di house, he dead wah couple months ago so di house mi vacant. Dehn guys use to like come heng out een deh and so wah lot ah fool inna dah house. Dehn like go smoke weed and smoke crack eena dah house deh so. I noh know why di attorneys neva get through wid dehn things deh cause I call twice before fi mek dehn know dat illegal activities di go on eena dah house and nobody noh do nothing bout it.”

Marion Ali
“You think dis dah weh happen dis time?”

Raul Acevedo
“I would ah suspect; I wouldn’t know. I would suspect, yes.”

Marion Ali
“It didn’t belong to anybody? Who is the owner?”

Raul Acevedo
“I noh know who dah di owner ah di building.”

Ted Smith, Fire Chief
“At the moment we do not know what started this one but we know we received this call at two-fifty-four and at two-fifty-six we arrived on the scene. At three-O-four the fire was under control and it’s already extinguished.”

Marion Ali
“What did you find when you came here?”

Ted Smith
“Well, on arrival we found the entire structure already engulfed in flames. Even before the truck arrived we could have seen the smoke on their way here. This fire was already in an open stage or free burning phase. Therefore, confinement contained the fire from—protecting the exposure became rule number one because you cannot confine weh done expose. So the strategy was to protect the exposure; that was well implemented and thereafter extinguished.”

Up to news time, investigations are still ongoing to determine the cause of the blaze.

Meanwhile, in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, another fire destroyed a wooden and concrete building. The incident occurred around nine-thirty on Saturday night in the San Pablo area. The owner of the building, thirty-nine year old Secondino Gonzales reported to police that he was on the third floor of the building when he noticed flames seeping from the floor beneath him. According to Gonzales, a woman who lived in an apartment on the second floor was cooking when the stove suddenly burst into flames. Although the San Pedro Fire Department managed to contain the blaze, they were not successful in saving the structure, which was insured.