Four children sustained burn wounds during multiple shack fire in Thokoza
Unfortunately, four sustained serious injuries and were transported to the nearest medical facility by private vehicle for medical care.
Four children, between the ages of two and five, sustained burn wounds in an inferno at Mpilisweni informal settlement, Thokoza, on October 11.
According to the Ekurhuleni DEMS spokesperson William Mogale Ntladi, Thokoza fire station firefighters were called in by members of the public for a multiple shack fire at Mpilisweni informal settlement, behind the fire station.
Ntladi said on arrival, five individual shacks structures used as a day care centre were engulfed by flames. Direct fire suppression was initiated and the fire was brought under control.
He said according to the information on the scene, twelve children aged between two and five years of age were rescued by bystanders from the burning shacks.
Unfortunately, four sustained serious injuries and were transported to the nearest medical facility by a private vehicle for medical care, he added.
“The sleeping children inside one shack were left alone with a burning coal stove in the kitchen. Members of the community frantically battled the blaze using an assortment of forcible entry tools,” said Ntladi.
“Firefighters managed to prevent further damage to other shacks on the premises and parents arrived to collect the other uninjured children. Preliminary information states that the cause of the fire is a coal stove.”
