Fire destroys home on Albert St.
While most of the nation took advantage of Tuesday’s holiday to either party or catch up on some rest, one Belize City family will always remember the tenth of September as the day their house burned down. Jacqueline Woods reports.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
By the time fire fighters arrived on the scene, the two bedroom wooden house at the corner of Albert Street and Ferrels Lane was already engulfed in flames. Thirty-year-old Sylvia Maribel Ramos was not home at the time. And when she got there, there was nothing she could do to save any of the family’s possessions.
Sylvia Maribel Ramos, Fire Victim
“Nothing, nothing, everything. My neighbour tell me seh how he surprise and all how the house gone so quick. Everything burn up. Dah quick thing, because when I left from my house dah quarter to 2:00. When they call me after 2:00, we just finish eat, because when we reach out deh we start to eat. We neva finish eat when I receive the call. And when they tell me, I only haul my children, not even finish eat, and when we reach everything done gone already.”
Today, fire officials were back at the scene sifting through the debris trying to determine what started the blaze. Authorities believe that a small fire may have been burning for some time inside the house before it finally built up and spread quickly to the ceiling.
Jacqueline Woods
“Mrs. Ramos said that she does not recall leaving anything on inside the house, and she believes maybe it could have been something electrical that started this fire. Are you all thinking along the same lines?”
Ted Smith, Operations Officer, Nat’l Fire Service
“Well we are searching for the cause of the fire. We don’t go assuming before hand what we think cause the fire; we let the evidence speak for itself. What we are doing, we are analysing the patter of the fire spread, direction of fire burning, and we have so far come up with the area we believe, the part of the building the fire originated from. What we are looking for now is an ignition source, to see what cause the fire to occur.”
Smith says their investigation reveals that the fire started inside one of the bedrooms. The Ramos’ had been renting the house for seven months. Today the family is staying with a relative.
Sylvia Maribel Ramos
“So much years you have to work to get your things and then you only use it for a lee while. That hard, especially with the children. All the children school things gone and everything…that hard, very hard. Today, children not even gone dah school, because they noh have nothing, nothing at all.”
Jacqueline Woods reporting for News 5.
If you would like to assist the Ramos family, you can contact Philip Ramirez at telephone number 615-2606.
