On a Thursday morning just before 10 a.m., an out-of-control fire swept through a commercial building and connected private residence in the Big Bridge community of Westmoreland Parish, Jamaica, leaving a local small business owner with nothing after years of hard work and a recent rebuilding effort. The origin of the blaze remains undetermined as investigators from the Jamaica Fire Brigade continue to comb through the charred remains of the property.
Two fire response units from the nearby Savanna-la-Mar Fire Station were dispatched to the scene after emergency calls came in, confirmed O’Neill Kerr, District Officer for Investigation with the Jamaica Fire Brigade. No lives were lost in the incident, though a small number of people sustained minor injuries while attempting to extinguish the fire before first responders arrived.
The business lost in the fire is a neighborhood variety store operated by a local woman who identified herself only as Sharon. The shop stocked a wide range of daily essentials for community members, from plumbing hardware and personal hair care products to household detergent, groceries and beverages. Sharon recalled the moments she discovered the fire, explaining that she first spotted flames spreading through the middle section of the building, wedged between a residential stove and a refrigerator. She had just been retrieving bottled products from the back storeroom when she noticed the smoke and fire, she said. Immediately after making the discovery, she alerted her husband, who was speaking with a friend at the front of the store. By the time he reached the fire’s starting point, the entire space between the two appliances was already fully engulfed in flames.
Sharon and her husband, assisted by a neighboring resident who joined the fight from the back of the property, attempted to put out the blaze themselves before firefighters could arrive. The group disconnected a water pipe from a large on-site water tank to access water, passing buckets of water to Sharon’s husband, who was inside the building battling the spread. However, the fire grew too quickly for their efforts to make a meaningful difference.
For Sharon, the destruction comes as an especially devastating blow, following recent hardship that she had only just started to recover from. After a recent hurricane passed through the region, her shop was burglarized, with thieves taking nearly all of her inventory and assets. She had spent time and resources rebuilding the business, restocking the store just one day before the fire, on Wednesday, because she prioritizes keeping goods available for her regular customers. Even worse, she had purchased a brand new point-of-sale software system less than a week before the fire, and that new equipment was also destroyed in the blaze. All of her personal belongings, including her mobile phone, purse, and important identity documents such as her driver’s license and passport, were inside the connected dwelling when the fire hit, meaning she now faces the lengthy process of replacing every critical document. With four children between the ages of 8 and 17 to support, Sharon says the total loss represents a crippling setback that has left her struggling to process her emotions.
Kerr told reporters that in the immediate aftermath of the fire, investigators are still in the early stages of their work, and it is too soon to confirm the exact cause of the blaze. Fire investigation teams have already been deployed to the site to collect evidence and assess the scene, he said, and work is ongoing to pinpoint what sparked the fire. Kerr added that officials have also not yet been able to calculate the total monetary value of the losses from the blaze, as the assessment process is still in its early phases.
This report was contributed by Anthony Lewis.