Fires strike Christian Faith Academy, Grays Farm community

Residents of Grays Farm and the staff at Christian Faith Academy were devastated when fire struck in two locations on Wednesday night.
Residents at Gilpin Avenue, Grays Farm, were in shock as fire ravaged several homes. The fire reportedly started at midnight by two unknown suspects, according to a resident who spoke to OBSERVER media yesterday.
The homeowner said that the fire began at one of the houses and then made its way towards his house, and destroyed everything he owned.
He also said that the fire department took 30 minutes to reach their location, due to multiple fires occurring Wednesday night and, to compound the issue further, the fire department also ran out of water trying to put out the blaze.
“Well, dey say we had about, like, four or five fires last night- different from us. So, they [took] a while before they reach by us, probably 30 minutes or more, before dey start to come. And when dey come, the water run out quick, dey had to go away and come back again, [because] no water was in Grays Farm Wednesday night,” he said.
OBSERVER media arrived at the scene between Wednesday night and and early yesterday morningfound a two-storey house and an adjacent wooden structure already destroyed.
Coincidentally, at 11 p.m., Wednesday, the principal of the Christian Faith Academy, Terrance Harvey, awoken to disheartening news from the fire department that the school had caught ablaze.
Harvey revealed to OBSERVER media that several buildings, including classrooms and administrative offices, were caught in the destruction.
He also disclosed that he was unaware of the exact cause of the fire at the time of the interview yesterday.
“I am not sure exactly what happened. I am in a daze like everyone else. I was called at about 11 o’clock [in the night]
that there was smoke coming from the building,” he said.
Although he was clearly distraught at the time, Harvey expressed confidence that the school will recover from the incident and will be ready for the new school year in September.
“There has to be sort of contingency plan put in place in order to accommodate our students. So, we will get going, [once] we get past this hurdle and we will hit the ground running,” he said.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Gaston Browne visited the affected families of the fire at Grays Farm, accompanied by Samantha Marshall, the minister for Social Transformation and Sergeant Veldon Ragguette, project coordinator for the Home Advancement Programme for the Indigent (HAPI) project.
According to a Facebook post by the Prime Minister’s Office, upon hearing the devastating news, the Prime Minister cleared his schedule for the day, and went to the site to speak with and console the affected families.
The online post also states that the Prime Minister will be working to help the affected families recover from the incident.
OBSERVER media reached out multiple times to the head of the fire department for more information on the cause of the incident and the ongoing investigation but was unsuccessful at the time this story was published.