Saint Giles fire team save the day
The 11 strong fire fighting team who were last trained in October wasted no time in getting the blaze extinguished.
TUESDAY, 31 January started off like any other day at Saint Giles, a NPO for the disabled in Durban, but little did the staff know what the last day of January had planned for them.
According to Terry Rennie, managing director of Saint Giles, at around 10.20am some of the staff noticed a distinct burning odour on the far side of the building. Upon investigating nothing was found to be out of place, but then staff member, Mthoko Gwala, went outside, only to come bolting back inside to sound the alarm as a fire had broken out in the loading area at the back of the building.
“The fire had started in a container containing waste cardboard, and it quickly spread to the main electricity box outside. The fire then went up the side of the one store, burning the cladding,” said Rennie.
He said the power went off in the building at 10.24am.
“We regularly had fire drills with the staff, so everyone knew what to do and played their part. We evacuated everyone from the building and made the decision to move everyone off the property as the work centre had been filled with smoke and the carbon monoxide levels were too high. Our 11 strong fire fighting team who were last trained in October wasted no time in getting the blaze extinguished. They kept their wits about them and were absolutely amazing, and in 10 minutes the fire was out,” he said.
The Durban Fire Department arrived on scene to ensure that all procedures were followed.
“They checked if the walls and roof were safe and if the fire was out properly. Thankfully the fire didn’t get into the outside store, as it would’ve been a different story and the building could’ve collapsed. We count our lucky stars that it wasn’t that serious and that no one was injured,” he said.
Rennie said Saint Giles awarded the fire team with certificates of appreciation for their good work. He said thankfully the organisation was insured.
By lunchtime on Thursday, Saint Giles had installed a generator so staff were able to get back to work on production. The wiring has also been done and the organisation is now waiting for the metre from the municipality to be installed to connect with the municipal electricity supply.
“We have learnt a few lessons from this, and some of our Unilever products and packaging had to be written off due to smoke damage. Unilever, one of our clients, is pleased with the way we are operating within policy guidelines and we received compliments from the company. We are aiming to employ another 30 disabled staff and are building three more stores to increase production space and storage,” he said.
