Cemetery View residents begin rebuilding after fire decimates 400 shacks

Cemetery View informal settlement residents in Pretoria have started picking up the pieces and rebuilding their lives after a blaze burned down 400 shacks.

Everywhere inside the settlement men, women and children were busy rebuilding the shacks which burned down on Sunday when a fire broke out at around midnight.

Tshwane Emergency Management Services spokesperson Charles Mabaso said firefighters arrived on the scene to find multiple shacks on fire and flames more than 20m high.

“Multiple explosions of what is thought to be gas cylinder bottles could be heard during firefighting operations that were carried out during windy conditions,” he said.

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Mabaso said the total number of shacks on fire was estimated to be 400 during the firefighting operations.

“An assessment is underway to determine the exact number of shacks and households affected,” he added.

Lucy Motloheloa was one of the residents who lost everything in Sunday’s blaze.

“My food, clothes, blankets, and even my passport, it’s all gone,” she said.

Motloheloa sells popcorn on a street corner in Pretoria East to make an income.

“When the fire broke out, I was sleeping in the house and then I heard someone shouting about something burning,” she said.

Motloheloa said when she went outside she saw the orange light from the flames.

“There is nothing we could do, it felt like we lost our minds. We just stood there,” she said.

“I have nothing left except the clothes I am wearing and an extra set in a plastic bag,” she said. She said she slept under a tree after the fire. Lineo Ntsalla said looking at all the rubble from the fire made her sad.

“It feels like something or someone died in the fire. We lost a lot,” Ntsalla said.

Patricia van Heerden was assisting one of the residents who lost everything in the fire.

“My fiance works with a guy named Rasta at Pool Warehouse who also lost everything in the fire.

“Rasta’s story touched me so much,” she said.

Van Heerden said Rasta’s colleagues and managers helped him and his partner to relocate and provide basics such as bedding and clothes. Noluthando Geja from the Asivikelane Organisation said she had never seen a place like Cemetery View in her life.

“It’s not a safe place because they build their houses with plastic.

“I never thought I would see a situation like that.”

Geja said both the government and the City of Tshwane needed to do something about it.

“People are now sitting there without any help. They need a better, more suitable place to stay,” she said.

Geja warned that if residents built their shacks with plastic, they would burn down again.