A sombre atmosphere engulfed Whitehall Avenue in St Andrew Wednesday afternoon as the community tried to come to terms with the tragic death of five-year-old resident Kimberly Harrison in a fire at her home.

“Bye, Miss”, were her last few words to Margaret Lewis Harrison, principal of the nearby Rosedale Basic School on Mannings Hill Road, moments before her death.

“She was a jovial little girl. She was hard to warm up, but when she get into it, she is very loveable. She always pass and call and tell me good morning. When she leaving she tell me bye. She is very learnable, very quick; she have a lot of friends. She is an outgoing child. She is going to be missed,” Lewis Harrison told the
Jamaica Observer at the scene of the tragedy, where firefighters were seen carrying out cooling down activities following the blaze.

“She just leave us at school and in five or 10 minutes we hear that she died in the house. Someone said that she was at the door trying to come out and her bag is on her back. Oh, Lord. She was a loving little girl,” the principal added as tears flowed down her face.

Kimberly’s mother, Shelly-Ann Brooks, was inconsolable and too grief-stricken to speak to the media, even as relatives and neighbours offered her words of comfort.

John Thomas, a resident of the community who rescued the grandmother from the burning house, said he was unable to help the child despite hearing her cries.

“I saw smoke coming from the house and then I went inside the house and heard a little child bawling for help but I saw pure smoke coming from the house. I tried to help but couldn’t go any further,” Thomas told reporters.

The cause of the fire remained unknown up to press time.

Assistant Superintendent Courtney Thompson of the York Park Fire Station shared with the Observer team that the child perished as a result of smoke inhalation.

Kimberly was reportedly home with her grandmother and other relatives when the three-bedroom home became engulfed in flames. No other family member was harmed.

“At approximately 2:53 pm we received a call of a house on fire at number 14 Whitehall Avenue. The Half-Way-Tree unit was dispatched to this location. Upon arrival the building was fully engulfed in flames. We used one medium jet to conduct cooling-down operations. Simultaneously we were advised that a child was in the house, so we conducted a search for the child. We found her in the bathroom, perished from the inferno,” Thompson said.

He noted that investigators are currently conducting their review of the premises to determine the cause of the fire.

Preliminary estimates of damage to the three-bedroom house is estimated at some $10 million.