Blaze Destroys Abandoned House in Belize City, No Injuries Reported

An early morning blaze in Belize City gutted an abandoned structure. Around 5:30, a fire broke out at a two-story wooden building at the corner of Victoria and Castle Streets. The flames rapidly fanned out and consumed the entire structure by the time fire personnel arrived. Despite the efforts of firefighters, the house was destroyed, leaving behind only pieces of zinc that formed its roof. Fortunately, no one was injured in the blaze, and the flames did not affect nearby structures. Belize City station supervisor Gladstone Bucknor spoke on the blaze and explained that while the house had been abandoned for several months, it was being occupied by squatters. 

Gladstone Bucknor, Belize City Station Supervisor, National Fire Service: “When the guys arrived both stations responded to that scene. They saw a large house fire. When I mean large it’s a two story wooden structure with zinc roofing. That building is an abandoned building and didn’t have electricity, let me make that clear, didn’t have electricity at the time so the fire had to be started from the inside and brought to the inside. Well at this moment we cannot say what actually started the fire but however some type of heat had to be introduced into the area. From our preliminary investigation what we discovered was that they do have squatters in and out of the building and one main person that was frequently at the house was somebody by the name of Harold. Full name and detail as yet we don’t know the whole name.”

Reporter: Any idea if this person Harold was there when the fire first started or was he there last night ? 

Gladstone Bucknor, Belize City Station Supervisor, National Fire Service: “Well from we have conflicting information that yes he was there and no he wasn’t there so we’re still looking into it. Actually part of the investigation we learned that some kind of heat was in there last night between nine and eleven so we’re still doing our investigation about that part.”

The cause of the blaze is yet to be ascertained.