On Friday we told you about a three structure fire which left 10 people homeless. Well, it turns out there were four structures and 15 people left homeless. And up to today, the fire department has still not been able to determine the cause of the fire. That's because they say the family isn't cooperating with them, and unconfirmed reports are that it may be because children were left unattended in the structure that caught on fire. Station supervisor, Kenneth Mortis, told us more.
Kenneth Mortis, Station Supervisor, NFS
"Friday afternoon unfortunately, 4 houses were consumed by that fire on Hibiscus Street. These 4 houses had a total of 15 family members being displaced. The cause of the fire from a fire department perspective is concluded at undetermined for the main reason that family members are one, not fully cooperating with us, and two, they're in denial regarding the information we have received from the scene."
"The fire started in one of the building situated in the back whereby reports reaching our investigating team were that some of the kids were left in the house unattended while the adults were out, hence the reason I mentioned earlier that the parents of these children adamantly deny such claims and due to lack of any sort of cooperation from these families, unfortunately we have to rule this fire as undetermined."
"When we arrived in truth, two houses were already consumed while the other two was in the initial stage. The operational tactics that was laid down by the fire team had us fighting this fire from off Vernon Street and off the street parallel to Vernon and right after that we had to consume our water, go find supplementary water and then come back, it was a back and forth shuffle. The one thing that we then had to focus on was control, or mitigate the loss, mitigate the damage, so as to not have a fifth building consumed by the fire."
