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A ring-side account indicated that Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings and her daughter Yaa Asantewa Rawlings, narrowly escaped death when fire swept through their colonial residence at Ridge last Sunday, through divine intervention, beyond the ken of mortals. Yesterday, Gina Blay, Chief Executive Officer of Western Publications Limited, publishers of DAILY GUIDE and A.R. Gomda, News Editor, visited the ruins of what used to be the living apartments of the Rawlingses, where a friend of the family, Herbert Mensah, said: �They could have been dead by now.� Now mostly showing blackened objects and reeking heavily of burnt books and wood, the extent of the inferno could not be overlooked. Daily Guide was told that Ms. Yaa Asantewa, one of the couple�s three daughters, woke up around 4.30am to go to the bathroom that fateful dawn, when she felt the acrid smell of combusting material and immediately saw smoke pouring into her room. The young woman rushed out of her bedroom which was a room away from her mother�s, and pushed open her door. When her mother, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, who is very asthmatic, followed her call to run out, she was greeted with a pall of choking smoke. Apparently, the fire, which it is suspected, started from the former president�s living room, soon swept furiously through the whole colonial structure. Instinctively, mother and daughter quickly moved out at break-neck speed to safety, as if enacting a rehearsed part of a play. By the time help was sought, the fire appeared unstoppable. According to Hebert Mensah, had the ex-president�s daughter not been prompted by the heavens to wake up, the story would have been different. When Daily Guide visited the house yesterday, the countenance of the ex-First Lady bespoke of one who had escaped a Haitian-style earthquake. She wore an all-white trousers and shirt and had one of her hands bandaged from an injury she sustained during the escape. Daily Guide took a guided tour of the 4-bedroom colonial structure which is divided into two parts- one side to the left and the other to the right. Mrs. Rawlings and her daughter were sleeping on the left side which was obviously more devastated by the raging fire, with the wood, concrete structures and air-conditioners, burning through to the ground. The right side of the building, although burnt through to the roof, was still more solid under the feet, with the air-conditioners and other items still standing intact under the wooden structure. Going through the debris of destroyed burnt brick roofing and mounds of blackened objects was a dangerous manouvre because part of the structure was wooden and therefore could give way under a certain degree of weight. There were a few gaping holes and as the Daily Guide�s delegation stood at the place which was the hall of the Rawlingses, now reduced to a confused collection of useless semi-wet burnt-out objects, they could not stop imagining how the ex-First Lady and her daughter contained the situation as the fire continued its destructive march across the structure. A careless move and one could land in trouble; no wonder Herbert Mensah was busy guiding the paper�s delegation as he pointed out the extent of the fire. The mystery surrounding the inferno heightened by the time the tour was over, especially given that a segment of the structure was torched on the first floor, with the opening on the bottom showing no sign of fire. This dismissed the theory that the fire could have started from that part of the building. Domestic appliances at that part stood unscathed from the inferno, as was a length of a cellophane material. Colonial structures in the mould of the Rawlingses apartment have an open ware-housing on the ground floor where some items can be kept. The Ridge Hospital is a typical example of the architectural design under review. A close inspection showed empty cans of aerosol alongside other unidentifiable objects in what looked like a kitchen. A few stacked newspapers survived as they showed their mastheads alongside Bible tracks and a motley of literature which were strewn about. As Daily Guide continued its tour of the ruins, soon the ex-first couple entered the yard and exchanged pleasantries with the team. Gina Blay asked Rawlings how he was doing and he responded, �Fine�. It was a brief but momentous meeting, and not without humourous remarks from the ex-fighter pilot who said, �I have to do something about my tummy.� His wife, Nana Konadu, appearing to be still stupefied by the events of last Sunday, was busy attending to other guests in the compound. Gina Blay exchanged greetings with her as she supported the handshake with a smile. As Daily Guide took leave of the burnt out structure, Mr. Rawlings, still standing in the midst of some foreign visitors, acknowledged waves of adieu with �ayekoo�. His wife was not left out, as she too waved at the Daily Guide delegation. Currently, Konadu resides with her mother near Nyaniba Estates while her husband lives elsewhere in Accra.