Man dies in Point Fortin house fire

Kevon Felmine

A 40-year-old man died af­ter a fire de­stroyed his two-storey home in Point Fortin on Sun­day night.

Po­lice said the blaze broke out short­ly af­ter 9.10 pm at a board-and-con­crete house along Reid Road Ex­ten­sion. Fire of­fi­cers from the Point Fortin and Mon Re­pos fire sta­tions re­spond­ed and brought the fire un­der con­trol.

Af­ter ex­tin­guish­ing the flames, of­fi­cers found the man in­side the con­crete sec­tion of the house.

A neigh­bour, Mar­va Charles, who is al­so the moth­er of the man’s for­mer girl­friend, said she last saw him alive ear­li­er in the day and re­gret­ted leav­ing him alone. She spoke of his re­cent men­tal health strug­gles and de­scribed er­rat­ic be­hav­iour, in­clud­ing nail­ing up doors and claim­ing he was hear­ing voic­es.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors and fire pre­ven­tion of­fi­cers processed the scene. The body was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary pend­ing a post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion.