Fire Distraught Families in Johnsonville
A rapid-fire disaster over the weekend gutted a four-bedroom house leaving at least 3 families homeless in Johnsonville Community, Montserrado County.
The disaster rendered the families including women and children homeless in this economically stricken January month as they call on the government and others for humanitarian assistance.
According to a victim of the disaster, the owner of the house was sleeping in the house when they saw smoke flaming towards the top of the roof.
‘’For me, I have my two children here, I came from the tire shop and put water on the fire, and I went behind the house to go and bath my children and after I got through and I was about to come in the house, I heard people shouting from all over, fire, fire, and came from in the house right now and how the fire enter the house, I don’t know” Madam Rita Lucky, one of the renters of the burned house narrated her odds in tears.
Madam Rita Lucky disclosed that she is not so many worried about herself but she is in sympathy with the owner of the house who is an elderly woman that has no other means of survival.
“I was sitting right on the road here when the fire caught on the building and the people started shouting, your come ooo, your come ooo fire is on the house and when we came to help to put it off, it could not be put off because of the blazing of the fire”; Achie Tarpah, an eyewitness told Kukatonon News.
Another eyewitness Abigail V. Cheah told Kukatonon News that the burning of the house remains a mystery to many of them because the cause of the fire is unknown as there was no presence of electricity, gasoline, or lighted charcoal pot in the house before it gutted on fire.
“Actually, up to now we don’t know what made the house burn because nothing was in the house like current, gasoline, or coal pot that could lead to fire but it happen suddenly and no one got burned or hurt one material got burned in the fire” Abigail V. Cheah lamented.
The cause of the fire is yet to be established as it rapidly burned the 4-bedroom house before any fire truck could arrive on the scene.
The people tried to salvage some of their properties but they could get little of the properties out of the house as the evening wind propagated the rapid spread of the fire through the house.
Absolutely no fire truck went to the scene to remedy the situation as the people noted that they did not know what number to call nor do they have trust in the Liberian Fire Service to quench fire outbreaks.
“Fire brigade can come and see the fire before going for water”, cried a bystander using her mobile phone to record the flaming house.
With the high tension line far above the fire, it posed no threat to the flow of electricity on the national grid in the Johnsonville community. The burnt home had no electricity line connected to it prior to being gutted by fire.
There are scanty data of the overall fire disaster in Liberia but have destroyed several homes across destroying lives and properties at mainly people living in poor communities.
