Tonight 11 Dangriga residents are homeless - after they lost everything in a house fire early this morning.
Video Footage was provided to us by JC Cuellar and Monica Bodden contacted the family by phone. Here's more:…
At around 7:30 this morning this concrete structure house that is located on Lemon Street in Dangriga Was engulfed in flames when fire fighters arrived.
Michael Middleton - Operations Officer, Belize Fire Department
"This morning at 7:34 the Dangriga Fire Station receives a call of a fire at #31 Lemon Street, they responded immediately and after fighting the fire for a while they brought the fire under control and extinguished it thereafter. Investigations reveal that it was a 2 storey house - concrete lower with wooden upper with 6 people occupying the lower, 2 adult and 4 kids, 5 occupying the upper, 2 adults and 3 kids. The fire originated in the bedroom in the upper flat, at the
time of this fire there was a 10 year old in this bedroom; he ran out the bedroom to his mother room and told her that the mattress in that room is on fire. After fire fighting operation was completed they did their investigation and indeed they found that the fire started in that room. Two other houses receive exterior fire damage. The house where the fire started was completely destroyed by this fire."
Cenia Nunez and her family lived in the upper floor of the building. Her son woke her to tell her about the fire.
Cenia Nunez - Fire Victim
"I was just sleeping in my room when my son came and hollered that the house is on fire. I went in the room to see the fire, then I went to the bathroom to get a bucket an full it with the pipe, but the pressure was so low that by the time the bucket got full the fire on the mattress was going high and higher so I couldn't do anything to put out that fire. The only thing I did was get my kids and come outside the house and make sure that they were alright because I couldn't do anything because the fire already spread to the entire room. I tried to get the TV out but I couldn't because the TV was in the back room that I was sleeping in so I could take out any clothes or papers or anything, everything is los_t."
And even though fire officials have not yet been able to determine what started the early morning blaze, Nunez believes it was an electrical problem since the house was old.
Jules Vasquez
"You have any idea what started the fire ma'am?"
Cenia Nunez - Fire Victim
"I think it was the switch in the room, the fan was plug in a switch on the wall because it was at that spot where the mattress was the fire started."
Jules Vasquez
"Have you been having electrical problems in the house?"
Cenia Nunez - Fire Victim
"No, not before, until now. They say that the house was very old. When they renovate the house they didn't change the electrical wires, so I believe that some wire was old and needed to be replaced."
The house was not insured and it was in the care of a caretaker because the owner is deceased….
