HOUSE, FURNISHINGS DESTROYED BY FIRE STARTED BY A CANDLE
OCHO RIOS, St Ann; June 7, 2026
A family in St Ann is counting its losses after a fire, apparently caused by a lit candle at the time of the islandwide power cut, swept through their house.
The fire destroyed the upper floor of a two-storey dwelling in Refuge Hill, near White River, St Ann, on Friday night, June 5, 2026.
(Pictures showing two rooms where everything was lost)
“I’ve lost everything. All my clothes, personal belongings, and even the things I had prepared for my babies,” said 31-year-old Malekia Lewis, who is eight months pregnant with twins. In an interview with the North Coast Times, Ms Lewis said she and four close relatives, including her father and a sister, live in the two-storey building with two bedrooms upstairs, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room. Downstairs had a similar arrangement, but one bedroom instead of two. Lewis said she was downstairs during the power cut. She said she had been wondering about a smell she sensed but couldn’t detect where it was coming from.
At 11:47, she saw the fire and started to spread the news to other family members in the yard. Her father, she later learned, had lit a candle for light and placed it on a table in the kitchen upstairs.
The fire swept through the upper floor quickly and soon caused a gas cylinder to explode, smashing the stove in the process and spreading the flames beyond the kitchen.
She said at one stage she ran upstairs, toward where her room was, but had to retreat quickly because of the heat. Ms Lewis said she was able to secure nothing. She explained how even a room recently painted for her expected twins was blackened and everything burnt.
She said the lower floor was damaged mainly by the water from the fire department, whose two units carried out a cooling-down operation. “Nothing is saved,” she said, itemizing the loss to include beds, chests of drawers, clothes, what-not, tables and television sets. She added that important documents for her were lost too, including “My bank cards, my passport, birth certificate, everything.”
She said she had checked her health and was ok.
She and other family members displaced by the fire are staying at houses on the same land owned by relatives.
TAKE A LOOK AT THE DESTRUCTION:
