THREE PERSONS were left homeless and five more lost most of their belongings yesterday when fire destroyed three wooden houses in a tenement yard on Elmer Crescent, Maverley, St. Andrew.
Residents said the blaze started about 4 p.m. It took six firemen about 25 minutes to put it out.
When it was over, more than $200,000 worth of goods were reduced to ashes and only the frame of one dwelling, with a melted television inside, remained.
Patrick Lee, a bus conductor, who lived in house No. 3, and was the owner of the melted TV set, told The Gleaner:
"Mi lost a bed, second-hand fridge, two chairs, six jeans and four ganzies... Everything gone." He stared at the rubble.
"All the curtain burn up," one of his friends added.
Nearby was his cousin, Patricia Dawkins. With one hand at her side and the other on her head, she said she and other family members were eating when they smelled smoke and investigated.
HAD TO RUN
"When mi go down a bare smoke mi see. Wi put on the lickle hose and ah try fi see how fi out it but wi couldn't do nutten 'cause the fire just a lick wi back so we haffi run. Mi all have mi lickle something dem whe mi want run in fi it but when mi see the fire, mi just have fi mek gone ah ketch," said the shoe vendor, whose family has lived in the four-house tenement for several years.
While Ms. Dawkins's house was saved, the area where she and her daughter, Tamara, stored clothes, furniture, barrels, household items and goods for sale, was gone.
"One lady trust me some stuff, 'cause mi did ah go dance tonight fi sell it and the whole of that stuff burn up. Them deh something value 'bout $6,000 and now mi haffi go pay fi wha mi no mek yet," she said.
Nearby was Tamara, who is almost nine months pregnant and who the fire left with only the bra and skirt she was wearing. She and Ms. Dawkins were lamenting the decision they made to take the baby's clothes earlier in the day to the building which was burnt out.
"Right now, we don't have a thing to wear 'cause everything down dere burn up," Ms. Dawkins said, relating her story to the police and neighbours, who had gathered.
The dwellings were not insured.
