Another day, another fire

It may not have been on the scale of the blazes we covered on Wednesday, but once again the fire pumps were working overtime in Belize City.

Janelle Chanona, Reporting

For the fourth time in two days, this afternoon fire officials were called to a house fire, this time at number twelve Vernon Street. According to eyewitnesses, the fire started from a small room on the ground floor of the house.

Marlon Garbutt, Eyewitness

“I mi deh inside and I start smell smoke, so I come outside and I see smoke coming from the downstairs. Even the guy that lives upstairs told me the same thing that the old man must have left something on downstairs like a candle or something electrical, but they noh really sure what dah the source of the fire.”

Janelle Chanona

“So as far as you know there might not have been electricity down there?”

Marlon Garbutt

“Well I noh think so. I nevah see light down deh yet and I work yah at night. But dah definitely from downstairs, definitely, the way the fire me de come through the window…and they mi deh upstairs when the fire start, so it couldn’t be from upstairs.”

Fire officials arrived quickly at the scene and within minutes had the blaze under control.

Ted Smith, Acting Fire Chief

“We responded with three trucks and were able to deal with it effectively. Notice how we operate, two trucks were on the ground with twelve hundred gallons of water each, a combine of two thousand, five hundred gallons of water dealing with the situation and one truck proceed to the canal to re-supplement the supply to the scene. Carefully observe that we did not run out of water at the scene with the amount of water on the ground while the next truck re-supply the scene.”

Neighbours told News 5 that the house is owned by the Gabourel family currently residing in the United States. The house is rented: one family resides on the upper flat, while one elderly man lives in the small room where the fire is said to have started.

Eyewitnesses say they were impressed by the quick response and management of the blaze by the fire department today.

Marlon Garbutt

“They really o a good job on this one, so think they would mek up for yesterday you could say. They did a good job because the house still di stand up as you could see, and even the downstairs noh burn that bad. They really did a good job this time.”

But the department is still feeling the heat from their performance at the fire on Ferrel Lane and the stinging words of President of the Chamber of Commerce. Acting Fire Chief Ted Smith says his officers did their best with the available resources.

Ted Smith

“The department believes he was affected directly by this fire and he was emotionally disturbed and so he reacted. He had personal things to lose as a result of being the President of Chamber, so he reacted as most people would react and find blame to put on someone else. We didn’t think that we are to blame for the fire because we didn’t light the fire. We were responsible to put the fire out. On arrival, the extent of the fire was far beyond our control with the initial response, the two trucks, but we did the best we can with what we have.”

Smith says there was a problem with the brakes of one of the fire trucks, but that the problem was rectified while firemen were still at the scene.

Ted Smith

“As soon as we get back the third truck on the ground, which was repaired and brought out there, you see how effectively we were able to deal with that fire. The second fire that occurred, you see the extent of that fire on arrival, plus we had more trucks, we had all our trucks together, we were able to respond quickly and effectively in dealing with that fire. Look at your footage and see the close proximity of the other structure at that fire and see how effectively we were able to deal with that, because we had all our trucks in operation. At this one, look at the age of the old wooden building next to it! But, we had all our fire-fighting resources and capability at the time, so we were able to effectively deal with it. Sometimes we will have shortcomings, all the vehicles will not be up to a hundred percent efficiency, we will just have to deal with it as best as we possibly can.”

Investigators spent the day at both the scene at Ferrel Lane and on West Canal but have not made any conclusions as to the cause of those fires. As for the third fire reported on Wednesday, we have been informed that it took place in the Lake Independence area. No one was injured in any of the four fires in the past two days.