By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

AN Exuma man says he has lost everything after a fire he suspects was deliberately set destroyed his family home in Harts early Wednesday morning.

Marvin Bain, 53, believes a former tenant may have been responsible, alleging a man had previously argued with his girlfriend on the property and issued threats the night before the blaze.

Police said officers arrived shortly after 3am to find the structure engulfed in flames. Firefighters later extinguished the blaze, but the home was reduced to rubble.

Mr Bain said he woke around 2,30am to find his roommate trying to put out flames that began in a back shed. “Me and my roommate, we was trying to put it with the hose but the hose wasn’t working,” he recalled. “When I see the water hose wasn’t doing nothing, I just knew it was over.”

He said the house, owned by his mother and aunt, had been in his family for nearly 30 years. He had lived there for the past six.

According to Mr Bain, the suspected arsonist once lived in the back of the property but was ordered to leave by his aunt for failing to pay rent and constant arguments with his partner. The day before the fire, he said, the man returned to quarrel with his girlfriend inside the house.

“On the night before it happened, the dude that was been there, he tells my roommate ‘Watch and see what happen’,” Mr Bain said. “The day I catch him, I went into the door with the girl. He was telling her he know what he capable of.”

Mr Bain is now staying with a friend and seeking assistance from social services. “I just went to social service to get some food right now, I’m not able to work or nothing,” he said.

Mainland Exuma Chief Councillor Glenn Davis, who lives in the same neighbourhood, described the property as one of the community’s older homes and said its residents were well-liked.

The incident has revived concerns about the island’s fire readiness. Last October, a blaze destroyed three stalls at the Exuma Fish Fry, exposing the lack of available fire trucks. Heavy equipment had to be used to demolish structures and dump sand to contain the flames.

While officials have since brought in water bowers and two fire trucks, Mr Bain said it still took almost two hours before help arrived. “That house gone before the time they come there,” he said. Asked if he was disappointed by the wait, he replied: “What could you say? Like you say this the island. Well, I could say it’s The Bahamas.”