MARIGOT--A fire completely gutted a house on Rue de St. James, Marigot, around 3:30 on Thursday afternoon, but fortunately, no occupants were in the house at the time.
Details could not be obtained at press time from the Fire Brigade, however, Capitaine Sylvain Jouault said the incident is under investigation and preliminary indications are that the fire was caused by an electrical problem.
The concrete, two-bedroom house with a large veranda faced on to Rue de St. James and was an adjoining house set at the back of the house at 73, Rue de Hollande, both of which are owned by the Emmanuel family. The front house was untouched by the fire, but has since been deprived of electricity since both houses were on the same circuit.
The patriarch of the family, Monique Emmanuel, passed away on May 14 at the age of 97.
One of his daughters, Cecile, said the Fire Brigade and Gendarmes arrived very quickly, but it was not certain how long the fire took to be extinguished. In any event, nothing could be salvaged. The fire reportedly started in a bedroom.
"It is two separate houses, but was being used by the whole family," she explained. "Everybody was in the front praying. Thank God we had Jesus with us. At that hour, we pray every Thursday. The Fire Brigade did their best. Nothing happened to us praise God."
She added the front house has enough rooms to make up for the two bedrooms ravaged by the fire, and an electrician will come today to restore electricity to the front. Several neighbours rallied round to console the family last night.
President of District Council Five Paul Whit expressed his condolences to the family.
"The family didn't have insurance and we are looking into to see how our community and the Collectivité can help them," Whit said.
Elsewhere, Gendarmes arrested an individual on Thursday morning for a robbery with violence that occurred three weeks ago in Sandy Ground.
Gendarmes are also investigating an attempted robbery of victims in a car, one of whom was a tourist, on Wednesday evening around 7:30. The perpetrator on a motorcycle threatened the victims and fired a weapon at the car.
