Asleep one moment, homeless the next: Sophia victims recall devastating Sunday night fire

Marlon Elam was asleep when the devastating fire broke out in North Sophia on Sunday night. Jolted awake by neighbours running and shouting, he joined a desperate but ultimately futile effort to stop flames that destroyed three buildings and left several families homeless in the Greater Georgetown community.
“Everybody was running around trying to stop the fire and warning neighbours,” Elam told Ignite News during this publication’s visit to the site on Monday morning.
The Guyana Fire Service said firefighters responded with three water tenders after receiving reports of the blaze at Lot 10 North Sophia, arriving to find one structure fully engulfed with nearby buildings under immediate threat. Three buildings were destroyed and a fourth was severely damaged.
Preliminary investigations suggest the fire originated from a motorcycle before spreading rapidly to neighbouring structures. The Guyana Fire Service said the fire was maliciously set by unknown persons.
Elam said the claim that someone intentionally started the blaze troubled him.
“If it is true that somebody deliberately started this fire, then that person needs to be held accountable,” he said.
Lance Corporal Gregory (only name given), another affected resident, said she and others tried to contain the fire after spotting it around 6:30 p.m. but were quickly overwhelmed.
“The fire escalated very quickly. Before we knew it, everything was gone,” she said.
Gregory said she lost household appliances, equipment from her small juice business and cash savings, and expressed uncertainty about how displaced families would recover.
“We don’t have any funds. We have to move forward somehow, but right now we don’t know what we can do,” she said.
Resident Daniel Duncan, who said he noticed people fighting the flames with buckets of water as he returned home, described the scene as heartbreaking.
“Several families are now homeless and we need answers about what happened,” he said.
Residents are calling for a thorough investigation into the cause of the fire as affected families count their losses.