23 homeless after Belize City fire

While most of Belize City was sleeping off the effects of the first night of a long independence weekend, residents of Craig Street and Barrack Road were awakened to cries of “fire”. Quickly on the scene was News Five special assignment reporter William Neal who was soon joined by cameraman Wilson Pat. What they found was that around six fifteen a fire had started in a small wooden residence in a yard on Craig Street. By the time things quieted down nearly two dozen people were homeless. One nearby resident believes that drugs were to blame.

Nigel Smith, Eyewitness

“The way I saw it, this girl had this one intoxicated and she took him in the yard, because she smoke drugs. And nothing was happening; I am telling you the facts. So she took the man in there, left the man in there, the man is intoxicated. If he knocked down the candle, I don’t really know to be specific. She went, the man gave her twenty dollars to go and buy dope and within the next five minutes time, by the time she went, I saw the man come out here and ran down Pickstock Street.

And from then all we saw was smoke coming out and after that a blaze went off that was uncontrollable. It was pure “stupidness” that the girl did, to be frank. Watch the disaster that was caused: people left homeless now.”

Catherine Moya, Eyewitness

“I called 911 and asked them to please make the fire service come but they took a good while before they reached. By that time the big house at the corner already caught fire. When I ran out here it was only black smoke that I saw. After that I saw that the big house already started to catch fire, big fire. And then the second one that was next to the big house, up at the top there, big red flames; that was already caught.”

Henry Baizar, Fire Chief

“On arrival here, what they found was a small building, located right behind us, between the two bigger buildings – that one was completely almost finished burned and the one at the corner was already burning. They got into operation and stared to fight the fire. They realized that they alone could not put the fire out so they radioed back to base for them to send two more vehicles. We sent two more vehicles and we positioned those on the other street, one on the canal and one further down and we started fighting the fire.

So what I want to say here is that most of these buildings are wooden and very old and once they start catching fire it’s very little we can do once it’s out of control. We try to contain it as much as we can and that is exactly what we did this morning.”

Q: “One of the things that always comes under fire with the Fire Department is the shortage of water. This morning quite a number of people were saying that it took quite a while for you to get your water supply. What do you have to say about that?”

Henry Baizar

“Water was not a problem this morning; what was a problem this morning was the electricity. We cannot throw water on the fire with all these big, high-tension wire because we would have no fire fighters. What happens when we received a fire call we normally call WASA and the Electricity Board, tell them exactly where the fire is so that they can come and block the area out. The firemen were here standing, waiting for them to block the electricity out. Sparks were flying left, right and center and you can’t throw water on that because the firemen would be fried likewise. And until they block the area out that’s when we could actually start fighting the fire.”

A total of twenty-three people have been left homeless by the blaze. Three major buildings and the small residence where the fire started were totally destroyed, while two buildings across Craig Street and one on Barrack Road suffered damage. Police and fire officials are still investigating the cause of the blaze and are looking for one of the victims, a woman named Lisa, who may be able to assist them.