The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

HOURS after Police Fire Services successfully contained a massive fire in the Gamble Heights shanty town on Sunday evening, officers had to be called in again early yesterday morning to battle a second blaze.

According to Assistant Superintendent Walter Evans, head of Police Fire Services, police suspect arson as the cause in both cases. However, he said, the investigation into the fires was in its early stages.

Authorities estimate a total of 20 structures were destroyed between the two fires.

“We believe the fire (on Monday) is connected to the fire on Sunday and we suspect arson, but there are still some areas of concern in the general environment that may have caused the fire,” ASP Evans told The Tribune.

“We got a call, shortly after 9am that there was a fire in the Haitian community, the same community that was on fire Sunday night. Several structures went up in flames, about 20 homes were destroyed.”

He indicated that while yesterday’s fire was not as big as Sunday’s blaze, it was still “significant” destroying more structures in the already devastated community.

When The Tribune visited the scene on Monday, a few residents looked on in disbelief.

One resident begrudgingly said: “They wanted us gone, all I had gone now.”

A woman, clad in a tank top, shorts, but no shoes, said: “All I got to keep was what I have on.”

When asked by reporters to describe what it felt like to experience the tragedy, a 43-year-old woman who asked not to be named said: “(The) fire (on Sunday) was too much, this new fire took everything I had left.”

With tears streaming down her face, she left the area with a suitcase and headed towards Blue Hill Road.

Patrick Charles, the reported owner of the six-acre property that encompasses Gamble Heights, has said the community had more than 150 structures, a church, a number of stalls and housed hundreds of residents, some legal and others illegal.

Portions of the Gamble Heights community were demolished under government directives on Friday.

At the time, some residents said they did not have notice about the demolition and said they were left homeless.

Representatives from Social Services contended on Friday that procedures were in place to aid those affected by the demolition process, however, the ramifications of the back-to-back fires is still unknown.