by Nick Delgado

Guam - Another structure fire Wednesday evening left a family of eleven without a home, but efforts are already underway to get the family back on their feet. It's the second structure fire in as many weeks leaving another family displaced.

Resident Lorna Camacho explains what happened last night, saying, "My daughter came home and went to her room, turned on the air condition and then came out to let the room cool down, and my little boy happened to go into the house to tell us mama there's a fire in the bedroom, fire and smoke, so I just took a pitcher of water, I thought it was just a small fire and tried to douse it off, and it just got bigger so I told my daughter to call 911. "

The emergency call was made around 7:10pm. The fire started in a bedroom of the two-story home in Chalan Pago along Santa Cruz Street where a family of eleven lived. Lorna's husband George had just got off from work when the fire broke out. "On the way home I noticed the fire trucks, smoke coming out of the house and I was just worried about my family," he shared.

The family safely evacuated the home, and fire fighters extinguished the blaze around 7:32pm. Ordot-Chalan Pago Mayor Jessy Gogue and Red Cross personnel also responded to the scene to assist the Camacho family. Red Cross Guam Chapter Emergency Services director Dave Peredo and his team interviewed the family at their home today. "They do have major smoke damages throughout the first floor, on the second floor its not as bad, so their concentration is to clean up the upstairs of the building for the family to stay there," he said.

"We provided them cleanup kits consisting of brooms, mops, buckets, disinfectants as well as comfort kits with soap bars, toothpaste, and lotions for their personal needs."

The home was deemed to be unliveable suffering severe smoke damage, and the Camachos were forced to move in with other family members. The Guam Fire Department classified it as an electrical fire due to a malfunction in the air conditioner. But the family is not letting this unfortunate incident kick them out of the place they call home.

"We are fine," said George. "We just thank God that everybody's alive and nobody got injured."

Camacho says they already started cleaning up so that they can move back in soon.