AN out of control fire break consumed a Shongweni family’s home and burnt it to the ground last Wednesday.
“My fiancé, Andrew Williamson, is a tattoo artist who works from home. He was busy doing a consultation with a customer and noticed a fire coming down the road. The wind was really strong that day and the fire was getting closer to the house. The customer then drove to the team that allegedly started the fire for the fire break and he was told to ‘voetsek’ and they had not started that particular fire,” said Britt Wearing.
Nothing was done by the team and Andrew was forced to watched in vain as the roaring fire crept closer to his thatched home. A week earlier the bush around the property had been cut down but had been left in piles around the property. “Once the fire ignited the bugweed it sparked and the thatch roof caught alight. There’s a large fire hydrant mounted on the back wall in case of emergencies, but the pipes that fed water to the hose had been melted by the blaze from the fire break,” said Wearing.
Williamson immediately contacted his fiancé to let her know the top section of their home was on fire and she urged him to get his tattooing equipment before the flames reached his downstairs studio.
He entered the home a second time to grab the family’s important documents, from IDs and passports to their birth certificates. “At that stage the smoke had engulfed the entire home and when he was rushing from the burning building all he could see was a wall of thick yellow smoke in front of him. It soon became a huge inferno and there was no way he could go back in again,” said Wearing.
Their four children were at school at the time the incident occurred. The family’s bull terrier puppy, Salty, and their grey cat Grey, were saved but the bull python died in the fire.
“The fire department put out the fire at about 5pm and there were five fire trucks on the scene and they said they had used between 80 000 to 100 000 litres of water. We were allowed to go into our room, which was still largely intact to salvage what we could,” said Wearing. She noted that during the course of the week, their building had been looted for any items they had left behind.
“We are doing really well after the incident and both Andrew and myself are living in a bit of a dream world for the last couple of days. It is one hell of a thing to go through but it has been the support from the schools and the community that has really pulled us through this. So thank you to everyone who has offered us their support during this terrible time,” said Wearing.
For the record
In the article, Blaze destroys family home (Highway Mail, week ending 22 August) the contact number was incorrectly printed. If you would like to donate any goods to the family who lost all of their belongings when their house burnt down, contact Navashnie on 084 563 6405.
