Four families displaced following mid-afternoon fire
- Crime & Police NewsLove NewsNews Flash & Headlines
- April 14, 2023
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Seven Belize City residents are without a home tonight following a fire that destroyed four structures. The blaze broke out just before two o’clock this afternoon at a home on Vernon Street and quickly fanned out to a nearby home on Hibiscus Street. The fire quickly spread and within a matter of minutes, four wooden structures were engulfed in flames, leaving four adults and three children homeless. Despite the efforts of the fire department, all of the structures were completely destroyed. Fortunately, no one was injured but the victims lost all of their belongings. Maggie Garbutt, one of the victims, told Love News that the blaze ravaged her sister’s new home which was recently rebuilt due to Hurricane Lisa.
Maggie Garbutt, Sister of Victim: “My daughter came and said mom the house behind my auntie’s house is on fire. So my first instinct was that my sister’s house was just built so we can’t afford to get that burnt right away. So I rushed outside and I asked my mom to hook the hose up so I could out what I could out but my brother came along, my neighbors and other people came and help me to try and hold the fire or stop it from leading over to my sister’s house. We managed to get out some of the stuff from inside her house but the fire was too severe and spreading really fast because of the wind and the breeze so it spread from the neighbor’s house to my sister’s house and also the neighbor to the right house started catching fire also. In November when Hurricane Lisa the tree from the neighbor’s house fell on my sister’s house and destroyed it completely so she had to raise funds to build her house back it’s a brand new house. It’s not even three months old it’s like a month old.”
Reporter: Can you tell us how this affects the family ?
Maggie Garbutt, Sister of Victim: “Well my sister is homeless again so it’s kinda hard and so she has to stay with us for a while. We have to start fundraising again or ask for donations from people to help her build back her home.”
Kennice Brown, Fire Victim: “It’s four houses that caught fire. My one is a four bedroom house with bed, tv, refridge, two double beds and a king sized bed. So I came straight from work and I saw the house up in flames. The only thing I could have done is cry, couldn’t do anything else, couldn’t save anything. It affects my family because first of all we don’t have anywhere to go, nowhere to lay our head and it is just complicated for us because my mom, my four other siblings it’s just hard. I couldn’t give you the exact but it is such an amount to be honest. The most I can say it will be about $30,000.”
