A man is dead and two children are in hospital after an early morning fire destroyed their wooden home in Black Village yesterday.
The fire started shortly before 1 a.m. and quickly engulfed the small, four-room home on Heritage Drive.
Sybron Colebrook, 33, who survived the incident said the fire grew so quickly that he barely escaped the burning home alive.
He said he did not remember much of the ordeal except that he was roused from sleep by smoke and fire not too long after the blaze erupted. Hot flames danced through the house and prevented him from exiting through the front door, he explained.
He added that the rapid spread of the fire left him no time to wake his uncle Brio Colebrook, who was asleep on a sofa, before he ran out of the burning home.
His uncle, a 36-year-old phone card vendor, has not been accounted for. A body, burnt beyond recognition, was recovered from the fire. Although the corpse has not been identified, his family believes it is Colebrook.
"I was sleeping, I had to run from my room to outside, I had to kick down the back door. That's all I could remember. I passed my uncle, (he) was on the chair lying down. . .when they said they found a body in there - it was only him one (left inside)," Sybron said at his aunt's home, which is located on the same property as the fire ravaged structure.
His aunt, Esther Colebrook, whose home received minor damage, recalled the harrowing moments of her escape.
"I was asleep but when my granddaughter came in the room and told me 'fire, fire,' I grabbed my disabled daughter and I ran outside barefoot, bare-head and everything. When I reached the door the fire was to me so I dodged and I ran with my baby," she said, holding two infant grandchildren in her arms.
Two children - an 11-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy - who lived inside the destroyed home were taken to hospital for smoke inhalation and burns to the upper body respectively.
Assistant Superintendent Walter Evans, fire chief, said investigators did not know what caused the fire, however, arson was not ruled out.
The blaze also destroyed two omnibuses parked in the yard and threatened neighbors' homes before it was extinguished.
Four fire trucks were called to the scene to put out the fire.
When The Nassau Guardian arrived on scene yesterday morning, neighbors and friends were sifting through the charred remains for salvageable copper.
Rodney Moncur, area resident and Democratic National Alliance candidate for Bains Town and Grants Town, was also on the scene.
Moncur, whose nearby home was nearly damaged in the fire, said he would agitate for the Department of Environmental Health to quickly remove the debris.
Police are also investigating a fire which occurred at a home in Yellow Elder Gardens around 3:30 a.m. yesterday. No one was hurt in that blaze.

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