Christmas shoppers watch as their vehicle goes up in flames
A Punta Gorda family that came to the city on a Christmas shopping trip, is heading home empty handed. The Majano family had stocked up their Isuzu vehicle and were about to leave the city this afternoon when the vehicle combusted near mile two on the northern highway. The fire started in the blink of an eye and according to Rosita Glenn and Teresita Majano, they heard a noise just before the vehicle burst into flames. Traffic was diverted for at least an hour as the Fire Department extinguished the flames. Glenn says they are lucky to have escaped unhurt.
Rosita Glenn, Fire Victim
“Coming up by Esso gas station we only hear a little pop from the vehicle and there when we looked a brush of fire just entered in on us. So all we did was hurry stop the vehicle and try get out the kids and our self and save what we could have saved but we couldn’t save everything that we had.”
Duane Moody
“How many of you were in the vehicle?”
Rosita Glenn
“There were six of us.”
Duane Moody
“Where were you guys heading?”
Rosita Glenn
“We were heading to Belama and—actually they were going to lef me at Belama and they were going back to Punta Gorda so in a way we were happy that it did happen here and not on the highway.”
Teresita Majano, Fire Victim
“All those kids were crying because what happened we just went and did some Christmas shopping for them and everything just got burned up.”
Duane Moody
“So everything was lost—all the groceries and everything that you guys bought?”
Teresita Majano
“Some of them, only two bicycles we took out—two of the kids bicycles—that baby and that little boy and all the rest.”
Duane Moody
“How much would you say was lost?”
Teresita Majano
“Probably about one thousand five hundred dollars worth of things that we went shopping with.”
Keith Swift, Channel Seven
“How will this affect your Christmas?”
Rosita Glenn
“Well really bad because we just received the money you know. And that’s what we had.”
Teresita Majano
“We came up here shopping. But we’ll try to make it mien.”
The family says that the vehicle had no history of mechanical problems and it was insured with Insurance Corporation of Belize.
