BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – An early evening house fire brought out villagers and Fire and Rescue Services in the Middle Island community around 7:15 last night (Jan. 19).
The blaze left the small wooden house of Anthony ‘Tony’ Dickenson destroyed, along with all the contents of the home.
Reports reaching SKNVibes indicated that Dickenson’s home had been ignited by an unattended kerosene lamp that he had been using before leaving the house. It was also indicated that within a matter of minutes, the house was engulfed in flames.
When SKNVibes arrived on the scene, officials from the Fire and Rescue Services had been working to extinguish the flames but were unable to salvage any valuables from among the debris.
Dickenson told this media house, “I lit the lamp and set it down on the table; I made sure that everything was ok then I went outside and sat the on the jeep to the front of my house to wait on the bread bus. All of a sudden I smelled smoke even before I could see the fire and right away I knew what it was. I just ran over and borrowed the neighbour’s hose and tried to put out the flames, but by that time, most of the house had gone up in flames.
“I feel really bad how things happened but there is nothing I could do now. I have grown to learn that if there is something that you can control, then you can do things to change it, but I can’t control what happened. I lost a number of heavy machinery, appliances and my guitar, but I am grateful that nobody got hurt and that my life was spared.”
He added that many persons from the community ran to the scene and assisted him in extinguishing the flames using water hoses and said by the time the fire engine arrived on the scene, there was little or nothing to be done.
According to a police official on the scene of the fire, there was no sign of foul play indicating arson but confirmed that the cause of the fire was the unattended kerosene lamp. The individual informed that the fire caused a number of overhanging electrical wires to be damaged, and confirmed that no one was injured in the fire.
