THEY say dog is man’s best friend, but for 50-year-old Yvette Grant, whose five-month-old granddaughter was rescued by their pet dog from a fire that destroyed the family’s house, the animal proved to be a saviour.

A barking ‘Rudie’ hovered over baby Alamanda until a neighbour came and rescued her from the flames.

Alamanda was treated for smoke inhalation, but ‘Rudie’ was not as lucky. The dog died after the baby was rescued.

“So, instead of the baby die, he died,” Grant said proudly.

Grant’s family members are counting their blessings, but the last four weeks have still been hell for them. Grant has been ‘cotching’ at a friend’s house, while her three adult children, her teenaged daughter and her five grandchildren have all been ‘scattered about’.

The family was displaced when fire destroyed their dwelling at 11 Gem Road in Kingston on March 26. They lost everything.

“It hard, you know. We need some help, if not even fi we, fi me granny dem, you know,” Grant said.

The “granny dem” are Grant’s five grandchildren, the eldest of whom is a 10-year-old boy and the youngest, a five-month-old baby girl.

They have no clothes, no toys, no school books, nothing.

“Is a lady give me this skirt here,” Grant said.

There are several other families like Grant’s, who annually lose everything in house fires.

In 2006, for example, of the close to 10,000 fires that were reported, house fires accounted for about 10 per cent of this figure. The previous year a total of 8,596 fires were reported, and house fires made up 965.

The causes of these fires varied, and were due mainly to carelessness, according to the fire service, with arson accounting for only a small number of the reported cases. Additionally, the Public Assistance Division (PAD) of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, which is charged with providing temporary assistance to victims of fires, says help is limited to what the division has in stock.

Director of the Programme for Advancement through Health and Education (PATH), Jacqueline Foster, said the PAD tries to provide assistance in both cash and kind, and issues items such as mattresses and food stuff.

“But, it’s based on availability and partnerships with NGOs,” Foster said. These non-governmental organisations help in providing some of the material. But Foster said it is hard to estimate how many people will need assistance over any period as fires are frequent, and their expanse unpredictable.

Last month, for example, a fire at Railway Lane in Montego Bay displaced more than 30 people. Two weeks ago, a fire in Vineyard Town left 17 members of one family homeless.

But for Grant, the immediate need was for “something to sleep on”. But she told the Sunday Observer that this need was not met by PAD.

“I just ask them for one mattress,” she said. “Even piece of sponge.”

“They give me two tissue, a bottle of cooking oil, soap powder, two pound of sugar and a quart bottle of syrup,” Grant said.

In the meantime, Grant said the fire had destroyed five television sets, 5 beds, 2 chests of drawers, a six-piece dining room set, a brand new fridge and a stove, among other things.

“Me have nice things in me house, man,” Grant said. The total loss of the fire, the York Park Fire Station in downtown Kingston reported, was $2.5 million. The house was rented, and was insured by the owners so the family does not have that burden to bear.

And while Grant suspects that the fire was the work of arsonists, she has no proof, and the fire brigade says the cause is still unknown.

But most fires, an officer at the York Park Fire Station said, are either caused by children playing with matches, unattended fires or persons carelessly discarding lit material.

Assistant Superintendent at the Fire Prevention Unit, Floyd McLean, said the brigade had started to streamline its fire data collection partly with the view of encouraging housing developers to consider fire safety as a greater part of the design.

“As a fire service, we need to know the trend of burning,” McLean said. “We are talking to developers to see if they can design better fire safety strategies,” he said.

But, he said that has been going more slowly than expected.

“We have average compliance with respect to buildings going up, not necessarily good,” McLean said.

“We have a fairly good relationship with the parish councils and developers who are willing to stick with building principles,” he added.

McLean said the fire service would continue to work at getting full cooperation until buildings have proper fire safety systems.

In the meantime, Grant and her family will continue to see just how they can start their lives over, and will accept any help they can get.

“You can’t stop stress,” Grant’s 29-year-old daughter Cleyona Atkinson said, “(especially) when you look at the children.”