Fire Official Confirm That Orange Walk Fire Was Intentionally Set

On Thursday we brought you the story of the fire that destroyed the house of an elderly woman in Orange Walk. Sixty-one-year-old Bernadette Allen woke up to find her house ablaze at both the front and back entrances, luckily she managed to escape. A neighbor who was close to the family said that it was intentionally set. Today, Fire Station Supervisor with the Belize National Fire Service, Kenneth Mortis confirmed this to be true.

Kenneth Mortis, Station Supervisor, Belize National Fire Service

Kenneth Mortis

“Mr. Barklay, an apparent, an apparent mental case patient, he set the structure on fire whereby his, uh, grandmother was trapped. I don’t know exactly what, what he was thinking about because apparently investigators revealed a he lit both entrance and exit point to the structure literally entrapping is the elderly with, with, with fire. Fortunately for her, she was able enough to make a forcible entrance at the rear of the building. Had she not been able to do so than I believe the after cops would have been by far more serious than it really was. It’s hard to say what was used because, um, everything around you is an accelerant. Everything around you is a fire load. You can basically set a piece of cloth, so to speak. The team didn’t find any, any substance that led to a liquid accelerant. So, we’re, we are of the point that. Used his, um, ingenuity to set this place a blaze. Um, it’s amazing that the woman managed to come out with her life. We’ve been told that he’s under the police care and exactly how they decide to treat this matter. Then that would be a legal, a legal aspect of the end result of this case.”