Three house fires, which oc­curred in a week, in­clud­ing one which led to the death of a home­own­er, have reignit­ed calls for a fire sta­tion in the Princes Town/Moru­ga dis­trict. The lat­est blaze left An­tho­ny Ja­cob, his wife, and 12-year-old son count­ing their loss­es af­ter the up­per floor of their Fifth Com­pa­ny Vil­lage home was de­stroyed while they were at church on Car­ni­val Sun­day.

Al­though his broth­er and the res­i­dents tried to con­tain the blaze un­til the fire ten­der ar­rived, the up­per floor of the house was de­stroyed. “I must say thank God for the res­i­dents, they came out and as­sist­ed… and keep the whole house from burn­ing down,” he said. They al­so helped en­sure that his par­ents, aged 78 and 74, who live down­stairs, es­caped un­harmed.

For­tu­nate­ly, Ja­cob said a fire ten­der was in Princes Town on an­oth­er call and re­spond­ed with­in a rea­son­able time. Oth­er­wise, he be­lieves, if he had to wait for a ten­der from Pe­nal or Mon Re­pos, the en­tire prop­er­ty would have been de­stroyed.