Woman, 82, dies in Diego Martin house fire

Shane Su­perville

An 82-year-old woman died af­ter a fire de­stroyed part of her Diego Mar­tin home on Sun­day af­ter­noon, with in­ves­ti­ga­tors still try­ing to de­ter­mine what sparked the blaze.

Po­lice iden­ti­fied the vic­tim as Khairun Ho­sein of Al­lick Ter­race, Bagatelle.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, Ho­sein and a rel­a­tive were at the house short­ly af­ter 3.45 pm when the rel­a­tive, who was down­stairs, smelled smoke. She ran out­side and re­alised a room on the sec­ond floor was on fire.

Res­i­dents quick­ly formed a buck­et brigade in an at­tempt to con­tain the flames be­fore fire­fight­ers ar­rived.

Of­fi­cers from the Four Roads Fire Sta­tion reached the scene at about 4.15 pm and ex­tin­guished the fire. Dur­ing a search of the house, they found Ho­sein's burnt body on a bed frame in an up­stairs bed­room.

A Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer vis­it­ed the scene, or­dered the re­moval of the body and di­rect­ed that an au­top­sy be car­ried out at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James.

Fire of­fi­cers con­tin­ued in­ves­ti­ga­tions on Mon­day, with the cause of the fire still un­de­ter­mined.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day, Ho­sein's son, Sean Ho­sein, thanked Bagatelle res­i­dents for their ef­forts to save the home de­spite the trag­ic out­come.

He said he was re­ly­ing on the sup­port of his wife as the fam­i­ly coped with the loss and de­scribed his moth­er as some­one he reg­u­lar­ly spoke with dur­ing the af­ter­noons.

Sean Ho­sein said the ex­act cause of the fire re­mains un­known but not­ed that his moth­er had a habit of smok­ing.

Neigh­bour Su­san Sher­wood said she saw flames com­ing from the house while look­ing out from her kitchen win­dow. She de­scribed Khairun Ho­sein as a well-liked and re­spect­ed mem­ber of the com­mu­ni­ty and re­called the con­ver­sa­tions they shared over the years.