Today we spoke with representatives from the Diaspora Office and the Consulate of Belize in Los Angeles about who was affected. Here's what we learned.

Yvette Gentle, Vice Consulate to Belize
"Our heart goes out to every member of our Belizean Diaspora who was affected. Now being here at the consulate of Belize in Los Angles California The office of the Foreign Mission is the entity who has the responsibility to advise coordinate and guide the counsel accord in California and therefore has been providing updates to all consulates. When the consulate here the Consulate of Belize here in California was informed of the red flag warnings in effect a flyer was posted on our facebook page informing Belizeans in the Diaspora of the situation and encouraging them to adhere to instructions from the local authorities. We also provided links to the latest emergency updates and alerts as a list of evacuation centres were already opened and so that too was communicated to members of the diaspora and The Red Cross was actually the American Red Cross was actually the ones manning most of the shelters and continue to man these shelters and so The consulate also informed the Diaspora by way of these flyers to communicate with the Red Cross and we also informed them and gave them the consulates email address so that they can communicate with us as we had personnel staff from the consulate office respond to emergency communications and to answer your question so far we have not heard much from our diaspora and we are hoping that it is a good sign that many of them have not been affected."

Sandhya Murphy, Ambassador for Diaspora Relations
"We haven't heard a lot from the diaspora certainly we have not heard from anybody directly who has been affected or loss their homes however I will say we have heard from individuals, concerned individuals you know concerned people in the Diaspora who do know of a couple I think maybe two or three families that lost their homes. One of The things I know is that I think these families and even those who have been affected indirectly by possible, you know people have had to evacuate because of the proximity of the fires right for example their house. They did not lose their homes but it was just too close to the fire so they had to evacuate and so all these individuals I think really they are still in shock right and they are traumatized right now at this point you can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to right to lose your home or think that it is a possibility for you so I think people are still scared to speak up and they are still trying to deal with everything that's going on right now but like Vice Counsel said hopefully its good news that we don't have that many people calling in so hopefully that means that not a lot of people are affected but you know whether it is one person or one family or five it doesn't matter who it is every family ad every person matters right and so we want to make sure that they are aware we are here for them and we are available for them and we are here to support them, we have been encouraging the diaspora. I know we have sent out to different organisations, Belizean organisations we have been sending out information, we've done it through our own data base, through the consulate sending out information to as many people as we can get to just letting them know where they can go to get support where the resources are for example the American Red Cross is a wonderful organisation they are helping everybody who has been affected everybody by the fires they are not asking immigration status or your nationality, none of that, you don't need to worry about that and I think it's important for people to understand that and especially within our Diaspora don't worry about that, about immigration status and nationality and gender none of those things matter, they are there to support you and they will help."

An advisory from the Consulate says the consulate advises all members of the Belizean diaspora wishing to obtain documents such as birth certificates, consular identification cards,passports etc., that may have been lost during the fires, to send an email to belizeconsulatela@mfa.gov.bz .