A mother and her 11 children, the youngest only 2 years old, are homeless tonight after they were burnt out of their house and home this afternoon.
The apparent accidental fire started in Sharlene Gonzalez's kitchen but minutes later both a three-storey cement and a two storey wooden structure in her yard on Usher Street were in flames. Both houses were eventually destroyed by the blaze which has put the Fire Department once again on the defensive. Here is the story.
Keith Swift Reporting,
Smoldering ashes and this skeleton of a building is all that’s left of the two structures at no. 10 Usher Street where Sharlene Gonzalez and her 11 children called home after a mid-day fire ripped through their residence.
Sharlene Gonzalez, Fire Victim
“I had a wooden structure, the front house, and I was in the back at the time in the cement structure. And what happened is that I was on the phone with an international call from my mother and I noticed that I saw smoke coming out from the front of the house so I went inside because I was cooking beans at the time. But then I noticed it wasn’t the beans on fire. It was the hose that caught fire and it burst into a flame. So my instinct was to just go and out the tank and then at that time I was thinking about the kids and where they were because the older one had just left for school. I have a set of twins and a 2 year old.”
KS: So it was the hose from the butane tank to the stove?
Sharlene Gonzalez,
“The hose from the butane tank it looked like it had a hole because only that specific side was in flame but the smoke had already taken over in the house.”
AN: So you couldn’t reach the tank?
Sharlene Gonzalez,
“I reached the tank because the tank is separate from the stove. The tank is downstairs and the stove is upstairs.”
KS: So you were preparing lunch when this happened?
Sharlene Gonzalez,
“No they had already eaten. What happened is that I had some beans on the stove and I went and I put some water in it but it was okay. But when I went back when I saw the smoke coming from the house, that’s when I noticed that the hose was on fire.”
KS: Were you able to get everybody out?
Sharlene Gonzalez,
“Yes.”
Sharlene was able to secure all her children and that is it for the good news. The bad is that everything in her house was destroyed and residents in this Victoria Street neighborhood place the blame for the disastrous loss squarely on the Fire Department.
Dawn Davis, Area Resident
“The fire pump came and there was no water. The hose burst and we were showing the fireman that the place at the top was catching fire and he said he is not going up there to out no water. We were around there helping and the police moved us out of the way. This is our neighborhood. We have to take care of here because this is a congested place and once there catches, everywhere will burn. So the fire place moved lousy.”
“They could have done far better than that. If they had enough water and the hose didn’t burst, they would have done better.”
And Assistant Fire Chief Ted Smith agrees they lost this fire fight. From broken and defective hoses which bursting and sending water awry to just plain old poor coordination on the ground - he says they bungled this afternoon’s fire fight and there is no excuse.
Ted Smith, Assistant Fire Chief
“Today we had water problems; you saw it. We had some difficulty with some hoses that were burst and this is something we will have to look upon. This is an internal problem that we will have to look upon. Those hoses as you saw came off the truck burst. They should not have been on the truck burst and that affected our performance tremendously.”
KS: The people in this neighborhood say the performance of your team was unacceptable.
Ted Smith,
“It is unacceptable for the department right now. I personally am not satisfied with our performance.”
Still that is little consolation for this mother of 11 children who watched 35 years of her life disappear in less than 35 minutes.
Sharlene Gonzalez,
“I don’t know where…what will happen. I have no idea.”
Sharlene Gonzalez says she will be staying with a relative tonight. The Fire Department meanwhile plans an internal investigation. Late this evening the Fire Department confirmed that the fire was caused by a leak at the rear of the butane stove.
7NEWS produced for broadcast by News Director Jules Vasquez
Edited for the internet by Keith Swift