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Not long after that robbery, a fire broke out in Lindo's Alley, but it wasn't from inside a house. Rather, the thick smoke came from a vehicle parked on the street.
The vehicle belonged to a taxi driver who said it was giving problems, but he never expected it to burst into flames. We spoke with him today as firefighters were extinguishing the blaze.
35-year-old Francis Burke has been a taxi driver for over a decade, but since he doesn't own his own cab, he rents them to make a living. But now he's out of a job and a vehicle after the van he'd been using for the past couple months caught fire near his home in Lindo's Alley.
Burke told us that his friend wanted a lift to get some car parts, but when he tried to start the engine, it wouldn't work. Not long after that, the vehicle erupted into flames:
Francis Burke, Taxi Driver
"When I tried to start the car, it was backfiring. So I said I will leave it a little while and then I took off the pole for the battery, I put it on back, try to start it and it was still doing the same thing then I put it on a little bit of rev and I came out of the vehicle and left it like that. When I was walking away from the vehicle, the neighbor upstairs said fire under the car and I was like, what are you talking about? And when I looked around and I peeped underneath I saw fire dropping from around the gas tank area. So the neighbor on the other side gave me a container with some mud so I tried to throw some mud underneath and it was still dripping. So when it was dripping, it dropped the fire at the same time, so I tried get hose from the neighbor and tried to wet it to out the fire so in other words, I tried to do my best that I could do."
"So I called the boss' son and he said he was on his way but I told him the vehicle was already on fire, it was already throwing smoke, it was already blowing up so that was it for me."
And since this is Burke's only source of income, he's worried about being able to feed his kids and disappointing his loyal customers.
Francis Burke, Taxi Driver
"I'll be out of a vehicle quite a while until I can find a vehicle. So it's kinda rough for me because I have my three kids and they're always depending on me so it will be kinda rough for me because I don't have a car, if I had a car then I could move around my customers and my customers always rely on me, if they don't have any money, they could always call on me and I move them and take them until when they get some cash. So I'm very reliable, a lot of people come and they call me in advance. Like one of the ladies right now, back by Freedom Street, she called me to bring some food at Belize Bank, she called me in advance, she said please come pick me up today because the service that you give me, nobody else gives me and the price you take me for is very reasonable so I try work it out with everybody. So at the end of the day it's kinda rough for me to just watch my car just go up and I was just looking to start my morning to try and deal with my kids and try to make them eat something for the afternoon."
If you would like to reach out to assist Burke, he can be reached at phone number 627-8527.
