Family of 12 trying to rebuild after fire

Silford Morrison, 87, sat in disbelief as flames engulfed the place he called home for over three decades.

His daughter, Monique, shared that her father lost everything in the July 20 fire that gutted the family’s seven-bedroom dwelling on Crescent Road, Kingston 13.

“A lot of people run into the yard and seh, ‘A fire dat enuh, a fire!’ When we saw the smoke, we checked our sister room. Her room wasn’t on fire, so we said it must be ‘round di back of the house. This part of the house was a shop area, but my sister uses it for her catering business and my brother was in there cleaning up meat. He ran around to his room and he saw his entire room was engulfed by the time we got around there,” Monique related.

As her brother, Belewa, tried to save some of his belongings, the family went into a frenzy fighting the fire. Making matters worse, the community had been without water for the past two weeks, and what little they could acquire did not put out the flames.

“The drum was empty, and what we had saved was in a storeroom and that had caught fire already. Some of our neighbours came with buckets of water, but it wasn’t working. It basically looked like we were throwing gasolene on the fire; the fire just a get bigger. The room had already gone and he didn’t get to save anything at all. He was very distraught,” she said.

Monique managed to save her laptop and personal documents, but other relatives were not as successful to save as much.

She told THE STAR that it was hard to contact the Jamaica Fire Brigade, as calls to the 112 number went answered. But by the time they arrived, the fire was uncontrollable.

“We remembered that we had cylinders in the shop, because we have a catering business. There is a cylinder in the kitchen, in my brother’s room, in my uncle’s room, a cylinder in my other uncle’s room, and about three cylinders in the shop. We heard them popping and they said if we didn’t get them out, they would explode,” the 25-year-old recounted.

The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, as fire investigators told the family that the scene was compromised due to persons who may have taken contents from the home.

Now the family of 12 is looking to rebuild their home. Monique said her father is having a hard time accepting the loss, but still clings to the hope of one day returning to the space.

“When it happened, I knew he was in shock. He saved one of the chairs from the living room because he has had nightmares about the house catching a fire and not being able to save a table. And now that the table is gone, all he could do was sit and watch everything happen,” she said. “I don’t think he knew what to do, and he didn’t want to move. He wanted to sit and watch everything go down. Once you have life, you have everything. We are just asking for kindness, anything can help.”

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Donations may be made via GoFundMe at https://gofund.me/9d7de86e

Scotia Bank Hagley Park Branch; account number  836666

Or by contacting Monique Morrison at (876) 538-3273