Orin Smith, Station Manager, BNFS
"On arrival at the scene at 3:05pm the roof of the structure was observed already collapse and the fire was in a free burning phase. We got into operation to extinguish the fire. The fire was later brought under control and extinguished."

Jules Vasquez
"Now sir the criticism is the inevitable arises that you all arrived late. That you all took an hour to arrive after the fire started. Explain to me the tight sequence."

Orin Smith, Station Manager, BNFS
"We responded at the time of the call."

Jules Vasquez
"Which was?"

Orin Smith, Station Manager, BNFS
"2:34pm. between here and Hattieville, there was an approximate 13-15 speed bumps. The truck has to slow down at each of these speed bumps. Otherwise it will burst the tanks holding the water and when we arrive on the scene, we will just have a truck. It took us about half an hour from here to arrive on the scene and the time of arrival the roof of the structure had already collapsed and the fire was in the free burning phase."

Jules Vasquez
"From the theory about how fire spreads in a small room like what they were in, would they have first succumb to the smoke in the natural course and then eventually their unconscious bodies would have been taken by the fire?"

Orin Smith, Station Manager, BNFS
"In that close compartment - not likely. They would not have been overcome by smoke in that shortness of time and the quickness of the fire development."

Jules Vasquez
"They would have first been consumed by the fire?"

Orin Smith, Station Manager, BNFS
"They may have been weaken, but would probably still be alive by the time when that occurred."

Jules Vasquez
"So, most likely the fire consumed them alive unconscious?"

Orin Smith, Station Manager, BNFS
"Yup."

And while this is a terrible fire tragedy, it's not the worst we've seen. In 2001, 7 children between the ages of 9 months and 13 years old burnt inside a trailer home in the Belama area of Belize City. Since then, we've reported on other cases where two or three children have perished in at least four other fires. In almost all those cases the fires were started by candles in homes without electricity. In this case - the girls - all wards of the state were locked inside a small room where one of them set a fire.

But, back to the fire department - when we were there - the fire pumps were not working and we saw firemen toting five gallon bottles of water and hauling water buckets. Smith explained that after they emptied the fire truck tanks of the 700 gallons that the trucks carry, they had a hard time pumping water from a nearby stream:

Jules Vasquez
"I observed that you all were having great difficulties. I saw some fire men with buckets. I saw one with a 5 gallon bottle of water and I saw you were out there having great difficulties with the pump. What was the situation?"

Orin Smith, Station Manager, BNFS
"After depleting the water at the scene, we went to find an open source to fill back the tank and the area we went at, the water was a bit shallow and pump "cavitate" - meaning it was picking up sediments. So we had difficulty getting a sustain draft to replenish the tank. We had done a number of different trials including trying to force-span the vehicle, but to no avail."

Jules Vasquez
"So you all were unable to make your pump work?"

Orin Smith, Station Manager, BNFS
"Yeah. Eventually we had a 3rd truck brought on scene and put out the remaining spot fires."

The Fire Department has recommended that a fire hydrant be installed at the hostel. There was a major fire there in March of this year, and in February of 2011- Both were found to be arson, and both set by the female population. No one was hurt in either case.