A one-year-old boy was reportedly burnt alive in a house at a section of Mountain View Avenue in St Andrew on Saturday afternoon, after he was left in the custody of a four-year-old.

The name of the toddler was not released up to press time yesterday.

Reports from Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) are that about 12:53 pm, Rollington Town Fire Station responded to a call about a blaze at a dwelling. During the cooling down operations the remains of the child was discovered.

Commissioner of JFB Stewart Beckford told the Jamaica Observer that an investigation revealed that the toddler was left with a four-year-old who reportedly caused the blaze.

“Based on information received, the four-year-old was playing with a lighter and that is what would have caused the fire. The four-year-old was able to make it out of the building but by the time he alerted neighbours, it was too late for them to remove the one-year-old from the burning building,” said Beckford.

In an appeal to parents, he urged them not to leave children unsupervised, warning of the dangers that can occur.

“If you have to go on the road to do business and you have young ones at home, please find an adult — whether it’s a friend or relative — to stay with them. I know it’s not necessarily easy sometimes to find adults to stay with these infants regularly, but we have to be more responsible as parents,” said the commissioner.

“While we are not seeing a lot of these incidents as in the past, one such incident is one too many. That’s one innocent life that has been lost because a parent was not responsible,” he added.

A total of 22 people have perished from fires since the start of the year. Beckford said the figures represent a downward trend when compared to last year.

– Tamoy Ashman