Family Loses Belongings in Roaring Creek House Fire on Easter Sunday

A family of five lost all their belongings in a house fire in Roaring Creek, Belmopan. The fire happened on Easter Sunday around 10:48 am at Moises Garbutt’s residence. Garbutt’s mother, Monica Neal, believes that a solar panel battery overheated causing the fire. 

Monica Neal, Mother of Fire Victim: “Okay what actually transpired was my son was busy working for me, we’re also doing an addition and he was here helping. It was like noe hour he was already here starting doing our stuff and one of my nephews calls and says that, his name is actually Moses Garbutt, and my nephew came and he hollered and he said “Hey Mose your house is on fire.” So what happened is we dropped everything and left everything that we were doing and we went there. By the time we reached there the fire already took all over in the house already so he tried to reach upstairs because the house if virtually off the ground but by the time he reached upstairs there was nothing he could have done. There’s nothing nobody else could have done. And the heat well this morning there is heat going and between the heat there was a breeze blowing and that helped speed up the fire more. My son recently bought this solar panel thing and this guy actually came and hooked it up for him and he used the battery and there was as complaint in the week that the girl complained and said that the battery was actually sparking right ? And she wasn’t home, the kids weren’t at home they were all here watching and supervising what my son was doing and I believe maybe the battery probably caught on fire I would say because it’s very close to the bedroom. So I believe maybe it sparked and ended up catching fire.” 

The family’s home was not the only thing that was destroyed by the fire; his vehicle and motorcycle were also damaged. Garbutt is asking the public to assist so that they can rebuild their home.  

No one was injured in the fire. If you are willing and able to assist the family, they can be contacted at phone number 666-5739.