AS Jamaicans celebrate Christmas Day, 47 people in the Corporate Area will spend the day trying to salvage their belongings from the charred remains of their tenement houses.

The 47 people, including women and children, lost their homes at Waltham Park Avenue, Ricketts Crescent and Tulip Lane after fire raced through their tenements on Saturday, destroying everything in its path.

When the Observer visited premises at 34 Upper Waltham Park Avenue in Kingston Sunday, the picture was one of despair. In a tragic twist of events, tenants at 56 and 58 Ricketts Crescent also lost everything they owned as a result of the same fire, which angrily blazed from one house to the next.

At 34 Upper Waltham Park Avenue, all that remained of the six dwellings that were previously occupied by Robert Dennis and his 10 family members, were charred mounds of debris.

“Wi lose everything in a jiffy second; dem not insured so wi haffi start all over,” Dennis told the Observer, as he and family members sat staring at the rubble.

He said the origin of the fire, which started about 1:00 pm on Saturday, was still a mystery to him and his family. They didn’t see it coming.

“Everybody out here picking chicken, and after we finish, mi get up and go towards my house an when mi pull the middle door is just pure black smoke mi si a come out,” Dennis recounted.

The tenants were, however, displeased with firemen from the Half-Way-Tree division, who responded to the emergency call.

‘Di fire man dem come late and come widdout water. Dem let wi dung man. If dem did come early we woulda save nuff; when dem come everything flat,” Dennis complained.

Now, he said, the family will have to start afresh as everything, including his children’s school books and uniforms, as well as his wife’s medication, were devoured by the blaze.

“All mi Christmas shopping bun up. Mi juss spend $7,000 and stock di fridge, an all di baby eat out of it ah one sausage. Mi dawta fi teck GSAT, and all a di book dem bun up. Mi wife jus’ come outta hospital and all her medication gone. This is my holiday,” Dennis told the Observer.

The story was the same at 56 Ricketts Crescent, where 20 people who shared the premises lost everything they had to the fire.

“Everything gone. Documents, birth paper, school uniform, bed, shoes, all mi money gone,” one tenant Marcia Lugg told the Observer. Clearly unsettled by the situation the residents were also not sure what they would do after the holidays when it was time to return to work.

“Wi can’t go a work, wi nuh have no clothes fi wear,” they told the Observer in a chorus. They were also concerned about one tenant who is nursing a newborn.

“Mi homeless too, but mi concerned bout her,” Lugg said.

And they too blamed the firemen.

“Dem stay roun deh so [34 Upper Waltham] half-hour before dem come roun yah so. Di whole a dung deh so bun out arreddy, and a dung deh so di man dem deh fi half-hour. An dem come an dem nuh come wid no wata,” one tenant complained.

The blaze, which also spread to the seven-apartment house occupied by Lavern Simon and her mother Isola Whittingham and seven others, spared only a smoke-blackened washroom and kitchen.

They too blamed the firemen for negligence.

“Di fire start bout 1:00 pm an all when 2:00 pm the fire brigade nuh come. An when dem come an somebody inform dem bout roun here so, dem seh ‘whosoever round deh fi stay an bun because all di while dem light fiya round yah,” the residents at 56 Ricketts Crescent alleged.

“Dem negligent bad an dat meck roun ya soh burn so much,” they told the Observer.

In the meantime, some of the residents said Member of Parliament for East Central St Andrew Dr Peter Phillips had pledged assistance with housing, but pleaded with anyone who can assist to help them restart their lives.

Tragedy also struck elsewhere in the Corporate Area several hours earlier. Aneka Gordon, 26, awoke at 3:00 am Saturday to the screams of her family members in the yard shared at premises on Tulip Lane in downtown Kingston. The fire, which she said started from an electrical short circuit, mercilessly devoured the board houses on the premises.

“I woke up and hear the screaming, and by the time wi jump up it already catch my house,” Gordon said. One person suffered minor injuries in the blaze, which destroyed everything owned by the seven individuals at the premises.

“We lost everything. Wi have to sleep at mi cousin house – the whole a wi have to pile up on the floor,” Gordon said.

As to what comes next, Gordon preferred not to say.

“Bwoy ah can’t answer dah question deh right now. Mi really still in shock,” she said.

In the meantime, Gordon told the Observer that Member of Parliament for West Kingston, Opposition Leader Bruce Golding, has promised to see that housing is provided.