We turn now to a family from the Gungulung area of Belize City, whose 2 houses burned down completely this morning.
At around 1:00, the family of 13 woke up to the worst, real-life nightmare: their homes were on fire, and they were caught inside. Fortunately, they all escaped the blaze, but when the Fire Department was finally able to put it out, all their belongings had turned to ash.
We got a chance to speak with them today, and Daniel Ortiz has that story:
Daniel Ortiz reporting
When we visited the Davis/Garnett family yards in the Gungulung area, the remains of their family homes were still smoldering. The structures housed 3 adults and 6 children in 1, and a mother and her triplets who are only 1 and a half years old, in another. They were both destroyed by a fire which broke out sometime around 1 a..m. this morning.
The family of 13 is now homeless and in extreme distress.
Kirk Davis - Fire Victim
"This is all we have. This is the family right here. There is no other place to go. This is all we have. We worked very hard for this, all these years."
Luwiena Garnett - Fire Victim
"[We] just have to try and make it back, and try to see what we can do, and see how we could move on from. [We] lost everything."
They woke up to thick plumes of smoke that was threatening to choke them to death. Fortunately, everyone escaped from the burning houses in time, unharmed.
Kirk Davis
"The whole family was already sleeping, and so we are not quite aware of exactly when the fire actually occurred. But we were awoken by thick smoke, the whole house fully engulfed in smoke. We tried our best to get out of the house. [We] couldn't save anything. [We] couldn't look for anything, no memories, nothing. It's just just a great loss. After all these years of hard labor, my wife and I worked very hard to establish a family home back here in the Gungulung."
Luwiena Garnett
"When I run downstairs, because if you could notice, the steps are this way here. The fire was already on this wall here, coming from underneath the house. By the time all the panic, and we got out here, and reached by the gate. All I heard was my mother crying about where my baby is. He had to run back up o into the house. Her room is far back that way, but he managed to get her, Thank God."
The family is unsure how the fire started.
Reporter
"Do you all have any ideas as to what caused the fire?"
Kirk Davis
"We're not quite sure. We're just waiting for the Fire Department to do what they are supposed to do, and then, we'll know more or less what occurred."
Reporter
"Instinctively, what do you think caused the fire? Do you all think it's some cause, or that somebody with malice did this to you all?"
Luwiena Garnett
"It has to be that somebody set it, simple because we are careful. These things don't happen like this, but I will just wait until the Fire people do their check, and tell me exactly what is the problem before I make any noise, or assume whatever."
But while Garnett is waiting for the investigators before she starts pointing fingers and speculating, her mother, who was also devastated by this blaze, is not so reserved in her judgement.
Voice of: Lavern Gordon
"Whosoever did it to me and my daughter, everything went flat. Leave them to God, because I never knew that this would happen."
"I dont' know why did this to us, why, because [we] didn't do an anything to anybody (sniffles)"
Reporter
"How much would you estimate is the value of the properties you all lost here."
Kirk Davis
"Close to about $70,000 in property, household items, everything we lost. ID's, certificate of achievement that the children had. everything we lost."
