The fire department also had to respond to a second fire that happened on the other side of Fabers Road in the "Bootsville" Area of Belize City.
According to the investigators, their evidence suggests that the residents of the home were unsafely siphoning electricity from one of BEL's power lines and that their electrical infrastructure suffered an overload. Here are those comments:
Kenneth Mortis - Station Supervisor, NFS
"Sunday morning, we received a fire call over on the other side of Fabers Road, where we responded and found a zinc/pipe structure, approximately 10 by 15. That structure was fully engulfed in flames. Again, we extinguished the fire, and we learned that this particular building was owned and occupied by a mother and daughter. We learned that the daughter wasn't at home. The mother was at home. She stated that she wasn't doing any cooking, so our investigation intensified, and we had to try and determine what caused that fire. We learned this particular structure, unfortunately, was the recipient of an unregistered nature of electricity. It wasn't registered to BEL, therefore, after closely looking at the remains, we can safely conclude that this fire started as a result of an electrical overload, which again, is an unfortunate situation. We all know that once you are in the habit of trying to ease your
financial expense by tapping into these lamp posts, in order to provide your residence with direct current, the risk that you're taking is very high. This was just one of those unfortunate scenarios waiting to happen. This was a total loss for the mother and daughter duo. Again, fortunately, nobody was injured in this blaze. On behalf of the fire department, we can only continue to try to discourage residents from tampering with these electrical polls for a free means of electricity. The good ole saying is every day the bucket goes to the well, one day, the bottom might fall out. You might be doing this for years and years and nothing happens. But, over time, you do have electrical breakdowns, and the result isn't something that you would look forward to."
