The Patricia D. James Secondary School in La Clery, Castries, temporarily suspended classes on Monday after a raging bushfire poured thick smoke into classrooms.
Students assembled on the La Clery playing field while emergency personnel from the Saint Lucia Fire Service (SLFS) rushed to the scene and extinguished the blaze.
Residents reported seeing smoke billowing from a vacant spot in one of the La Clery lanes shortly before noon.
Shirley, one of the residents said an elderly man of unsound mind started the bushfire.
“I asked him from since this morning ‘What are you doing there?’ But he didn’t take me on. He sat there and he lit a fire. I asked him why he lit the fire because it could cause damage, but he picked up a stick and tried to hit me with it,” Shirley told St Lucia Times.
The resident recalled that she and others tried to put out the blaze and summoned the fire department.
She asserted that had neighbours not been at home, the fire would likely have spread to nearby buildings.
Too many mentally challenged people out there … but we pay no heed, and have no idea how to confront it!!