ST MARY, Jamaica — Four businesses have been destroyed by a fire that began in a derelict building and spread through a plaza in Richmond, St Mary on Sunday evening.

Stores that sold computers, cologne, haberdashery and clothing were gutted by the blaze.

Deacon Kong, owner of Kong’s Auto Supplies in Richmond, says he is grateful for the quick assistance of residents who joined 16 members of the St Mary fire department and helped contain the fire before it damaged more than the roof of his business place.

He told OBSERVER ONLINE on Sunday that this was not the first time there has been a fire at the location.

Kong also said that the building has been abandoned for at least a decade.

“The whole of this block was damaged. It was fire-burned in the ’40s, the whole block,” he said.

“The derelict buildings… should have been… demolished by their owners, but they were allowed to stay there.”

He also noted that history almost repeated itself because the authorities failed to listen to his appeal to demolish the old, pest-plagued building where the fire began.

“They were rat infested and so forth. Last year, I went to the parish council and I begged them to have the owners… demolish the building because they were old and rat-infested and it was like a fire bomb, and this is what happens. This is the result,” he said.

“A fire started somewhere up the road… and it spread all the way here. Caught fire in no time at all, no time at all,” he added.

– Davia Ellis