Fire destroyed a section of the Morant Bay courthouse in St Thomas yesterday, leaving damage estimated at $1.5 million.

The blaze, which was extinguished by one unit from the Morant Bay Fire Brigade, extensively damaged the roof of the court office. Official documents that had not been consumed by the blaze were destroyed by the water used to fight the flames.

According to the Morant Bay police, at about 11:11 am, while court was in session, smoke was seen coming from the rear of the building, which also houses the St Thomas Parish Council. A few minutes later, the police said, the court staff saw smoke coming from the court office that was housed on the first floor and called in the fire brigade.

Court was hurriedly adjourned and the building evacuated, but the blaze had already engulfed the roof of the courthouse.

Fire officer, Deputy Superintendent Louston Gooden, said the fire was caused by sparks from a pile of burning rubbish at the rear of the building. He said the fire brigade had focussed on saving other public buildings near the courthouse, such as the police station.

Yesterday, police forensic experts were dispatched from Kingston to investigate the fire and efforts were being made to find another location to hear court cases.

Over the years, there have been several cases of sections of courthouses being destroyed by fire with the most recent case being a blaze in Port Antonio on July 21. In that case, arson was suspected to have been behind the $4 million fire that destroyed almost 80 per cent of recent case files contained in the heritage site.

At the time, the justice ministry said that blaze would have helped spur on its efforts to address the issue of the storage of court records. The issue had also been raised after the March 11 fire that damaged the courthouse in Spanish Town’s historic Emancipation Square. On that occasion, the roof had caved in but firefighters, though hampered by a lack of functional fire hydrants, managed to save the section of the building where cases were tried.