Last night, we told you about the distress that 29-year-old Dorian Garnett is currently facing. His home in the windmill area of Hattieville Village was destroyed by fire on Saturday night.
He told us that he was in Mahogany Heights when he received multiple phone calls that his house was on fire. A second account, which police got, was that he and another person got into an argument inside the house. That other person reportedly lit the house on fire. You'll also remember that in his interview with us, he claimed that someone intentionally burnt it down.
Well, we've gone looking for answers, that took its to the experts at the National Fire Service who have conducted an investigation of this fire in Hattieville.
They concluded that Garnett's home caught fire because of an illegal connection to a BEL lamp post. This afternoon, the Station Supervisor for the National Fire Services shared a few more details on the inquiry into this matter. Here's what he had to say on the topic:
Kenneth Mortis, Station Supervisor, National Fire Service
"Our investigative team went out there yesterday and we can conclude that the fire started as a result of an electrical flaw or an electrical overload. This being the primary reason that the residents of the structure they were illegally tampering with the electricity from the BEL lamp post which they in turn directly divert it to their house and in turn share it to the neighboring house. Not so luckily just prior couple days the tenant Mr. Dorian Garnett disconnected the shared extension cord from his house to his common law wife's house and unfortunately the said Saturday during the rain that we were experiencing Mr. Garnett's house ignited in flames destroying his property and everything that he had own."
"Whenever we say that a fire is as a result of an electrical flaw, the firemen responding to these fires we are not guessing what we are saying. We have backative to support our cause and our findings."
Reporter
"Did at any point during the investigation the tenant bring to your attention an allegation he was presenting? He told us plain and straight that he thinks that someone intentionally burnt his house down. Did he relay that to the fire fighters as well?"
Kenneth Mortis
"We did not find any evidence to support that the fire was as a result of a malicious act which in terms of the law would be classified as arson. There was no findings, there was no support in evidence, it's an unfortunate case that you might always want to blame somebody for your property being destroyed by fire. Unfortunately in this case that is not so. We always try to hope that this will be the last, but for reasons unknown to us on the fire department's perspective residents - I would out on a limb and I would say across the country believes that if I short change BEL in stealing their electricity direct to my house, I might be saving my pocket a light bill expense. But in the long run we all know the ole saying "everyday the bucket go to well, one day it will drop out." So what happens is that I am getting direct electricity from the BEL main and I have nothing in between to break down this high amount of electricity that gets into my house, so if it is pushing 220, that's exactly what I am getting. We know that Hattieville over the past couple days prior to the fire they were experiencing some electrical short out and this is a fully furnished house and every single electrical appliance in this house generates electricity. It was an unfortunate timing that Mr. Garnett has suffered the loss that he lost to his property due to this abuse of electricity."
Viewers will remember that BEL has noted that the dry, dusty conditions caused by the drought, as well as the smoke from wildfires, were causing dust and debris to build up on their power lines across the country. That then started to cause problems where numerous electrical faults and sudden disruptions of electricity were occurring countrywide.
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