Thirty-seven-year-old Rashida Yearwood had just left her home yesterday morning when she turned back to get her name tag for work.
The mother of five was shocked to find the house on fire.
By then, the flames were too intense for anything to be saved and the three-bedroom house at Mayers Road, My Lord’s Hill, St Michael, burned flat around 8 a.m., leaving seven people homeless.
Yearwood, who has lived in the community all her life, said nothing had been saved and she could not say the value of the uninsured house. She initially had nowhere to go but by the end of the day she and the children – ranging in ages from one to nine – had found lodging with her sister.
It was the third fire in as many days, with Monday’s blaze at Heddings,
St Philip, claiming the lives of a mother and her eight-year-old daughter, while an elderly woman lost her home on Sunday at Passage Road, St Michael to fire, leaving six people homeless.
Rashida’s niece Sheena Yearwood was at work but raced to the scene when she got a got a call that her grandmother’s house was on fire and the children were inside. However, that turned out not to be so and Sheena breathed a sigh of relief when she found out the young ones were at school.
At the scene was Member of Parliament for St Michael East Trevor Prescod who said he had contacted the Welfare Department and Urban Development Commission to get help for Rashida.
He said he was on his way to yesterday’s sitting of Parliament when he received the call and moved to make arrangements for assistance until accommodation could be found and the house rebuilt.
Neighbours watched helplessly as the flames, the origin of which is being investigated, engulfed the wooden structure and destroyed it in minutes.(AC)
