Fuel blast in Haiti’s Fort-Liberté injures residents, destroys homes amid improper storage and lack of emergency response

FORT-LIBERTE, Haiti— Residents have been reeling after a massive fire sparked by the unsafe unloading and illegal storage of fuel tore through the Dufour neighborhood in the northeast, critically injuring at least 11 people — including five children — and destroying several closely packed homes.

The blast occurred around 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 6, according to witnesses, when a 55-gallon fuel drum slipped from a three-wheeled motorcycle while being unloaded at a storage facility. It burst open, spilling gasoline directly onto the trike’s exhaust pipe. The explosion sent metal, furniture and bodies flying before flames roared through the narrow alleyways.

In seconds, an ordinary Saturday in the populated area turned into a disaster zone.

The incident highlights a bleak reality in Haiti: daily survival often depends on dangerous practices, especially as fuel shortages deepen, fire services remain nonexistent, and government oversight and enforcement collapse.

In September, a similar incident took place in Fonds-Verettes city center—a commune about 44 miles southeast of Port-au-Prince—when illegal gasoline storage in a small shop triggered a devastating fire that swept through the town. Five people, including the shop owner Sonie Paul Dérolus and her four children, all lost their lives in the blast.  

Police Commissioner Jacques Antoine Étienne told The Haitian Times that the motorcycle was transporting four 55-gallon drums of fuel at a time for resale in the informal market. When the first drum burst, the gasoline ignited immediately.

“It was a ticking time bomb,” Étienne said.

Dufour’s tightly clustered houses ignited one after another.

“I always told him not to unload fuel here,” Edelyne Louidor, a mother of three whose house was reduced to ashes, said of the motorcycle driver.

 “He never listened. Now I have nothing left. I am beside myself. I’ve lost everything,” she said.

Other victims described watching their lives burn in minutes.

Nearby, an elderly resident, Elia “Man Carry” Jules stood next to what remained of her home. She escaped with only a blouse and a skirt. Her grandchildren suffered severe burns.

“I have been through so much in my life,” Jules reeled inconsolably. “My husband died suddenly. I had eight children. Only one is still alive,” she said. 

“And now everything is gone again. Why live?”

Children critically burned as hospitals are overwhelmed

The two main hospitals in Fort-Liberté struggled to treat multiple burn victims with limited staff and few supplies. 

Five-year-old Evnesk Antoine, burned over as much as 40% of his body, struggled to breathe and laid in agony.

“He keeps asking for water,” a doctor who chose to stay anonymous due to privacy concerns said. “But we cannot give it to him. It is unbearable.”

Two-year-old Lemier Mondésir, burned across his face and torso, sat beside his crying mother. Meanwhile, 4-year-old Rose Stancia from the same family lay motionless, her feet wrapped in oversized bandages.
 

In the next bed, 7-year-old Bedji-Flore Mompoint whispered through pain, hopefully: “My feet hurt, but I’ll go back to school soon.”

Adults were equally devastated.

Cherlande Séjour, 39, burned on nearly a third of her body, murmured:

“My house… the money… the merchandise… everything must be protected.”

No fire services, no state response

Fort-Liberté, the capital city of the Northeast Department and home to about 35,000 residents, has no functioning fire department. The station has no truck, no hose and no personnel.

No firefighters came. No emergency units came. As it often happened in many cities across the country, residents fought the fire themselves, using buckets of water and sand.

“Whenever a fire starts, you must be your own firefighter,” many residents conceded.

“We put out the fire with our hands,” said Kenn Pierre.

Others broke down concrete walls to stop the flames from spreading. Some rushed to hail the city’s three-wheeled-motorcycle water vendors, often the only source of water in emergencies.

“When the fire was rising, we all put our strength together to break down walls, to throw buckets of water and sand,” Frelin Louis-Jacques said.

DINEPA, the public agency for water distribution and sanitation, never arrived.

According to Police Commissioner Étienne, who returned to the site more than six hours after the explosion, no representative from the Ministry of Commerce — which banned home fuel storage in 2020 — visited despite the clear violations.

Survival economy and manufactured scarcity

Residents said gas stations have refused to sell at the official price of $5.38 per gallon, opting instead to sell wholesale to resellers who then sell at $7.69. It has pushed hundreds into the informal trade.

“If we don’t buy gas illegally, we can’t survive,” said seller Samuel Louis. “We know it’s dangerous. But hunger is worse.”

Across Haiti’s towns, fuel is sold in recycled soda bottles, plastic jugs and rusted drums — often stored in homes beside bedrooms and kitchens.

By late afternoon, the neighborhood still smoldered. Residents sifted through rubble searching for intact clothes, metal scraps and cookware.

“Firefighters don’t exist here,” said witness Frislin Pierre-Louis. “If a fire starts, you must be the firefighter.”

For many, the explosion was not just a tragedy — it was a warning. In a country where survival depends on taking risks, the line between life and death is one spark away.

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