A Ba fire on Friday has left a family homeless after their $150,000 fully furnished four-bedroom home was razed to the ground.

The family consists of house owner Ashok Chand Vinod,65, his wife, their son and daughter-in-law. They were all away when their house caught fire.

Mr Chand’s other three children, two sons and a daughter are all married and living away from Rarawai. Their family home was a concrete and partly timber and corrugated iron structured house.

A distraught Mr Chand a retired carpenter said another neighbor had alerted them about the fire at about 12.30pm Friday.

“I was not at home but at our neighbour’s place about three houses from my house. That neighbour then called the fire authority,” a teary Mr Chand said.

“We are just fortunate that no one was at home because if that was the case it would have been worse,” he added.

“My son and his wife were at a relative’s house in our cane farming community.”

Mr Chand said that years of hard work had gone down the drain.

“I am just saddened by this, we have lost everything, our house was fully furnished and we as a family have worked hard to build our family home, now all our hard earned possessions and years of hard work to build this four-bedroom home are gone,” he said.

His relatives have taken them in before they would start rebuilding their lives again.

“At the moment we will stay at my younger brother’s house before we start building our house again, I don’t even know where to start,” he said.

But he said that he would not give up because he believes in God.

“I know there is God and he will help us recover from this tragic incident.”

According to the National Fire Authority, they had received a fire emergency call at around 12.45pm.

Upon arrival at 1pm, firefighters saw the concrete and party timber and corrugate iron structure house fully engulfed in flames.

The fire team also managed to save three other nearby houses in the cane farming community from the blaze.

Investigations are underway to determine the cause of the fire.

Edited by Karalaini Waqanidrola

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