Suspected act of arson threatens Stabroek Market

A domestic dispute between a female stall holder and her partner is said to be the likely reason that the Stabroek Market wharf was almost completely destroyed by fire, late Monday.

Initial investigations by the Guyana Fire Service suggested that the blaze was started by a female stall holder after she had an altercation with her partner, which led to the woman dousing her stall with a flammable substance and then igniting same. This eventually saw a great portion of the Stabroek Market wharf being engulfed in flames. This publication received reports of a fire at Stabroek Market just before midnight on Monday, and when a reporter arrived on the scene, the Guyana Fire Service had three fire tenders and a number of personnel in place battling the blaze that had engulfed the northwestern side of the wharf that sits over the Demerara River. The Fire Service managed to contain the blaze in less than 45 minutes, but only after almost 25% of the wharf and a number of stalls would have been destroyed and a large area was already scorched by fire. A number of concerned stall holders were on the scene after hearing of the fire. When one man was asked about his immediate concerns, the stall holder said, “is bare thief man does be around here, if you don’t watch them, they would thief faster than the fire could bun.”

The area that suffered severe damage is actually the same area that the City Hall is in the process of relocating the stall holders from, to the front of the Fire Station, in an attempt to build a new wharf there, since the existing structure is more of a danger to stall holders and customers traversing that area.

(Kaieteur News)