Shacks gutted by fire
ALEXANDRA - Three shacks have been destroyed by an early morning fire in 12th Avenue behind Sankopano Centre.
Three shacks were destroyed by an early morning fire on 7 March in 12th Avenue, behind the Sankopano Centre.
The fire was suspected to have been caused by an unattended candle. A resident of the worst affected shack, Kagiso Medupi, said he suspected his younger brother had left a candle burning when he departed for school.
Medupi said he had gone to the Thusong Service Centre early in the morning to report the fact that the previous day’s load shedding had left his shack without electricity. “I left my young brother, who goes to Eastbank High School, in the shack and I suspect he lit a candle and forgot to blow it out,” he explained.
“When I returned I found the place engulfed in flames and our furniture, clothes and electrical appliances completely burnt out.”
The mother of the boy had left for Pretoria early in the week to visit her brother.
A neighbour, Isiah Moloto, whose shack was also destroyed by the fire, said he was woken up by smoke coming into his shack. “Before long the shack was engulfed in flames and I alerted the neighbours who came out to help put out the fire before the arrival of the fire brigade from the Emergency Management Services,” Moloto said.
During the height of shack fires in Alex a few years ago, Johannesburg’s Emergency Management Services initiated a ‘Bucket Brigade’, which comprised residents who were taught how to manage a fire before the arrival of fire engines.
