6 days ago, the historic Eusey home on Regent Street in Belize City burned to the ground, fire finally consigning the iconic shingle structure to the ash bin of history.
And tonight we're hearing from the man who battled the blaze, fire station supervisor, Kenneth Mortis.
According to him, the investigations around the blaze that threatened the very heart of the city are far from complete.
Still he gave our 7news team what details he did have while pushing for community cooperation.
Cherisse Halsall:
"Sir we wanted to ask you about, at least the preliminary details of the fire at the historical Eusey house."
Kenneth Mortis, Station Supervisor
"Wow, um, what happened is information is still, or should I say the investigation still hasn't been completed, um, the only thing we can shed some light on is that it's no unknown secret that Mr Harry Eusey is the owner of the building. History shows that there were several attempts to destroy the property by fire, maliciously I would say. Those attempts were futile until the final attempt was successful almost a week ago, while we learned that Mr Eusey didn't live in the building or live in the city, we were made to understand that the building was occupied at night by unknown people to us who we still haven't been able to confirm as yet?"
"We know that sometime after 1 a.m that morning of last week Saturday, the neighbourhood was alerted of fire and of course the fire department responded, unfortunately, the building was gutted to the ground and superficial damages were done to the neighbouring structure which housed the Salvation Army and we learnt that one of the vehicles belonging to the tourism unit or BTB actually suffered heavy fire damage whereby it, the rear glass burst as a result of the heat sustained by the building. Um, the fire started in the middle of the building as what the investigators could have concluded and while we are trying to confirm if this one was as a result of a malicious act we are still trying to await permission from BTB to view a camera surrounding the immediate area of that building. This is crucial because it can help definitely to confirm the exact cause of the fire, unfortunately until that happens the fire department is still in limbo as to say directly, what caused the fire or who could have contributed to that fire."
Cherisse Halsall:
"Sir but what is the delay, I know when the police need a surveillance video they just go and summon it, don't you have the same power?"
Kenneth Mortis, Station Supervisor
"Unfortunately, we don't have that power, we make a request, and um, if you tell us next month then we have to wait because it's a request, we are not fire Marshalls as other first-world countries might have, fire Marshalls are totally different from us so that is a bit dragging and it could be a bit frustrating as well to say because this is something that we want to bring closure to but until our request is granted then we can only wait and see how much longer we will wait."
The Eusey house is thought to have been more than 150 years old.
