Huge Fire In San Pedro Leaves 66 Homeless In Low Income Area

16 families comprising 66 people and 32 children are homeless after a huge fire last night in the Boca Del Rio area of San Pedro Town destroyed 5 buildings and damaged three others. If you're wondering how 66 people fit into 8 buildings - we should tell you that Boca Del Rio is a low income area of San Pedro Town, where many people are crammed into small shacks and apartments. So, the large fire had an outsized effect.

Today, Monica Bodden found out more about the fire and the aftermath when she visited today and found the San Pedro Town Council grappling to get shelter for all the affected persons:...

Monica Bodden reporting
The fire started at around 8:45 last night in the Boca Del Rio area North of the Island. It only took minutes before 8 houses within close proximity were ablaze.

Phillip Mencias - O.C, Fire Department S.P.
"One vehicle was dispatched and on arrival they saw that a two-storey wooden upper and concrete bottom was on fire, mostly the upper was on fire. Immediately they got into operation while at that time I was on my way from DFC area where I live and I brought the other truck. On arrival, we started to draft water from the open source and it took us about an hour and ten-fifteen minutes to bring it under control and then eventually we extinguished it."

And while the cause of the fire is still unknown- we do know it started from the back room of Lisber Bardalez's home.

Lisber Bardalez - Fire Victim
"I was on the verandah drinking my coffee with my son and my mom and my father was watching TV and my husband was sleeping. But people say that my husband burns the house and that is a lie because he was sleeping. I had just asked the lady from the house why she as saying that my husband burns the house and she say that's a lie, she didn't say anything. Afterwards we were drinking coffee and a girl pass and she say that how the house as burning at the back and she told my mom to come out and my mom told her that she can't come out because she can't walk. And then I went to check the rooms and when I opened my son room, I saw the fire coming from the window. After that I ran to the next room and I wake up my husband, he was sleeping and I said Rene, get up, get up. And then we lost the baby inside because we have a three year old baby. After that, I was trying to throw away the baby from the verandah and all the people that were downstairs was outside in the street. Only us whose house was burning were upstairs, nobody told us that the house was burning; only the girl that passes by."

"After that nobody in the streets came upstairs to help us even though we were shouting help because my mother was inside and the baby and everyone were inside. The girl boyfriend came and took the baby and brought him down and then my son grabs my mom and was bringing her down when he fell inside and then my dad came out."

Reporter
"Where did the fire started? From your son's room?"

Lisber Bardalez - Fire Victim
"From my son's room. I thought he was in there but he was in the streets, he always comes like around 9-10 in the night."

16 families are left homeless - that includes 66 people -32 of them are children.

Daniel Gerardo - Mayor of San Pedro
"I was up early this morning waiting for the early talk show, so I was the first one to call and I am calling on all the NGOs all the groups, any group of people that are use to help because this community is very good when it comes to unity and we do unite and we are focusing, probably Wednesday or Thursday, for a massive radio-thon fundraising and I'm asking the general public to please assist. We are good at it. So I am hoping that the Red Cross, the NEMO area representative and any other government department that can help is welcomed. I already spoke to the Red Cross just a few minutes ago, I spoke to NEMO, Miss Tim Rose; they are doing everything they can do right now. So definitely help is coming out pretty fast. Last night I was here and I helped two families immediately; I put them at the Roman Catholic Government School. This morning, we took them for breakfast, we are going to take them for lunch and I already told them to put their names at the Town Council. We'll help them with a small financial help, so they can manage to go around. But definitely we are looking for shelter and we'll have to be looking for clothing also."

Joe Hernandez was one of the first to spot the fire. He and his mother lost everything.

Joe Hernandez - Fire Victim
"When it began, I went downstairs to pick up my clothes because I was going to wash and so as I turn on the washing machine my cousin told me where's your mother. I said inside and he said, auntie, auntie….fire next door. When I look over there, the windows like that over there, it was blazing up. All I did was come and shout to the neighbors, fire, fire. Everyone just run away."

Edita Hernandez - Fire Victim
"I call the police right away and I shout for everyone, come out, come out because fire, fire. I call them, take out the kids, try to see what we can do, try to run. And when all of us run out, I realize I had some few stuff when I run in, but the fire was already there and can't save anything."

Reporter
"Did you manage to salvage anything in the fire?"

Edita Hernandez - Fire Victim
"One suitcase for my baby, one suitcase of clothes."

Reporter
"Are you renting?"

Edita Hernandez - Fire Victim
"No, that's my property. In everything, it's my husband and my two kids and at the side there is another house for my son, then the other neighbor with 3-4 kids with wife and husband and everything. By the way I think the fire could have avoided it because while this house was under fire I was trying to help hold the hose to put out the fire, but instead of outing the fire - they saw that next house over there under fire and so they leave this one and they went to the other one and the wind was blowing and I was like don't let my house catch because it's terrible to lose everything. By the time the fireman comeback again to out the house, no water was in the hose. They went to lagoon and when they came back my house was already under fire. Then these guys started to use buckets of water and the police started pushing them away. The police took a guy to the ground because he was under the influence of alcohol but he was trying to help hold the hose. I had to stop him from hitting the guy."

Reporter
"There are complaints that the fire department reached late, one; and two, that you guys weren't prepared when you were out here. Could you talk about that, about what happened in that process of fighting this blaze?"

Phillip Mencias
"Well it's just two men on shift you know. So if two men arrive, you have to wait until the others. For example, I had to come way from DFC; that took like fifteen, ten minutes for me to reach here, pick up the other truck and come to assist."

Reporter
"So there was a delay?"

Phillip Mencias
"In?"

Reporter
"In getting the fire under control."

Phillip Mencias
"Well I wouldn't say that. The guys were out here fighting the fire."

Monica Bodden
"There were also allegations that when residents tried helping the firemen stopped them from trying to out the fire."

Phillip Mencias
"I don't know about that ma'am."

Reporter
"I heard one of the families mentioned that the fire hose burst during the fire fighting process?"

Phillip Mencias
"You see, right here you have people driving on our hose and if you notice the street have sharp stones, so eventually when they are driving up and down on the hose it will burst."

Most of the affected persons worked in the tourism sector. So far fire investigators have bout found out what started the fire.

The San Pedro Town Council is taking donations for fire victims and if you want to help, you can call, the San Pedro Town Council at 226-2198 or 226-2788.

Channel 7