FIREBUG IN CITY

Vendor Cynthia Ashton and her family are now without a home after fire engulfed her residence at Paul’s Avenue on Saturday, July 22, at around 4 p.m.

It is alleged that one of her grandchildren, seven-year-old Delbert Miller was home alone when the fire started, but he was able to get out of the dwelling house before it spread.{{more}}

It is not certain how exactly the fire started but reports are that it could be arson. Owner of the two-bedroom wall structure, a very distraught Rhonda Joof told the Searchlight Newspaper that the property belonged to her deceased mother but her older sister Cynthia Ashton and her siblings were occupying at the time.

Joof cried, “It is not easy, I feel it for Cynthia because she really struggles to make a dollar as a vendor in front of the Court House, but now all the things she does sell gone. Cynthia would give me a little something to stay in the house, but I am paying for it and now, it come like I paying for nothing. Everything just gone up in smoke.”

Joof mentioned to the Searchlight that this was the second time that the house caught afire but previously helpful residents had been able to put it out before it got out of hand. She, however, noted that this time their efforts were in vain, but expressed gratitude to her neighbours and fire fighters who had done their best to help save the structure. She said that although they could not save that blazing house, the two other houses she owns which were located just behind the burning house were saved.

She admitted that for now, she and her sister and the seven other family occupants who lived in the destroyed home would have to live with her.

She opened up, “Cynthia is my family and I don’t want to see her in the street. My heart is aching because we lose the house, but what you going to do? It done gone so. At least nobody dead in the fire. All ah we going “squinge up” in my house until we could do better and start rebuilding.”

Police are still investigating the cause of the fire.