Fire destroys family home

While many of us were on our way to work, or perhaps even still in bed this morning, fire fighters were called to the scene of a fire in Belize City that erupted just after the residents had left. Jacqueline Woods reports.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting

The early morning rain did nothing to help extinguish the flames and the intense fire destroyed everything inside the one bedroom wooden house on Pelican Street Extension. Speculation is that the fire started after a curling iron may have been left on. However, Fire Chief Henry Baizar says the investigation is ongoing and he cannot say what started the blaze.

Henry Baizar, Fire Chief

“We don’t like to speculate on what caused the fire, but from all indication, it seems as if though something must have left on in the house, but we cannot say for sure.”

At the time of the fire, the tenant Alda Nunez and her two children were not home, but investigations reveal that the blaze may have started just five minutes after the family left the house. News 5 understands that Nunez recently purchased a number of household items and nothing was insured. The fire is the first to have occurred in December, and based on past records, Baizar says by the end of the month they would have responded to an even greater number. To protect your property, Baizar advises the public to be very careful especially during their Christmas preparations at home.

Henry Baizar

“In the Christmas season people use lots of extension cords, but they have to use the correct extension cords. There are some little flimsy ones that will get heated quickly and will start a fire. There are also heavy-duty ones, and if you are going to use these things you must ensure that they are okay. If it’s not working properly and you try to fix it and you try to plug it in, that’s what causes the problem. We need to careful. We bake a lot in the Christmas season, we put up a lot of lights, and sometimes we are tired and yet we still want to continue and we left our stove on and fires start. So my advice to people is, be careful. If you are doing something and you are tired, then you cut it off and start over the following day. They need to be very, very careful.”

The National Fire Department will be releasing some safety tips by the end of the week. Jacqueline Woods for News 5.

In November, the National Fire Department responded to a total of seventeen emergency calls. Of that number, six were house fires.