By early April, the New Amsterdam Branch of the Guyana Fire Service had concluded its investigations and submitted a report to the Chief Fire Officer accompanied by an assessment from the Regional Electrical Department. However, Chief Fire Officer Carlyle Washington told Stabroek News recently that the investigations were still ongoing.

“We are still collecting information but some persons have been unwilling to give us any. We have been receiving different versions of how the fire may have started but nothing concrete has been provided.”

According to Washington “if we are unable to find any concrete evidence then we would have to close the case and conclude that the cause is unknown.”

The fire which started just around midnight on March 7, destroyed ten businesses, one small cottage and several stalls. Eyewitnesses including a security guard reported that they saw smoke coming from behind a freezer in a supermarket shortly before the conflagration erupted. A source from the Electrical Department told this newspaper that a badly damaged main switch and an electrical panel recovered from the burnt out supermarket by the Fire Service and handed over to inspectors were too badly damaged for them to conclude definitively what might have been the possible cause.

The source explained that “the necessary technology is not available in Guyana for the required scientific probe in the circumstances to determine the cause.” However, one officer posited that a possible cause could have been a damaged electrical appliance. “The motor on the freezer could have malfunctioned and may have begun over-heating before eventually igniting,” he said.

The fire has changed the entire landscape of the town’s once busy shopping centre leaving in its wake charred remains of colonial buildings, twisted metal, heaps of broken concrete blocks and other residue. Today the burnt-out section casts a depressing atmosphere over the heart of the town.

Meanwhile, three of the businessmen who lost their buildings have submitted building applications to the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) to re-construct their businesses.

A source from the Town Engineer’s Department of the New Amsterdam Town Council disclosed that two of the businesses will be re-established at Pitt Street while the third will be re-constructed elsewhere. The two owners have begun clearing the sites and making preparations for building.

However, the others are yet to clear their properties of debris even though they are major eyesores. But as they procrastinate a few vendors have begun utilising the front of burnt-out businesses including two or three who have taken up permanent residence in a galvanised sheet-fenced lot at the edge of the destroyed section.

Meanwhile, a member of the New Amsterdam Fire Victims Committee told this newspaper that business-persons who suffered losses should contact chairman of the committee, Manniram Prashad at the Office of the President to uplift the required permission for them to be granted duty-free concessions for the importation of goods and/or building material.

According to the member, the committee established by President Bharrat Jagdeo following the fire is working in collaboration with the CH&PA to fast-track the building applications of the three business-persons.

And about 17 vendors, he said, who had sought financial assistance are expected to receive their cheques shortly in New Amsterdam. The three businessmen who are in the process of re-building are Roy Hanoman, Premchand Rajaram and Ganesh Persaud.

The causes of fires in the township over recent years have not been determined and this has been attributed to the absence of the required technology and expertise to undertake scientific probes. In one case an insurance company was forced to solicit assistance from overseas to determine the cause of a fire after local officials failed to make a determination.

Pitt Street named after William Pitt (youngest British prime minister on record, winning the post at age 24 in 1783) had been hit by two previous fires on the night of April 9, 1902 and in 1923. In 1998 another fire destroyed two large businesses at the corner of Main and Pitt streets. More recently on June 26, 2002 a fire razed an incomplete three-storey bond and three houses and damaged others a short distance away between Pitt Street (east) and Cooper’s Lane.