A his­toric South Oropouche land­mark was re­duced to ash­es yes­ter­day morn­ing af­ter fire de­stroyed the aban­doned post of­fice and for­mer war­den’s of­fice, with flames spread­ing to the roof of a neigh­bour­ing home where 15 peo­ple, in­clud­ing Venezue­lan mi­grants, live.

The fire broke out short­ly af­ter mid­day at the long-aban­doned wood­en post of­fice on the South­ern Main Road. Al­though the build­ing was de­stroyed, fire­fight­ers man­aged to pre­vent the blaze from en­gulf­ing the ad­join­ing home of Pun­dit Vish­nu Ma­haraj.

Ma­haraj, who has lived in the area for many years, said he im­me­di­ate­ly con­tact­ed emer­gency ser­vices af­ter spot­ting the blaze.