IN THE EARLY hours of Monday morning, May 5, fire gutted the home of Victoria Gregory and Ann Ross.
It is alleged that the fire was of an electrical nature and started in one of the bedrooms.
Anne Kerby, who was asleep in the bedroom where the fire is believed to have started, awoke at approximately 4:20am to her daughter, Fay, coughing. It was at this time that she saw smoke billowing out of the ceiling and windows.
Anne attempted to alert Victoria, who woke up and saw the flames of the raging fire and proceeded to find an escape route through the kitchen, unlocking the kitchen door and returning to fetch Anne and Fay from the blaze.
Once everyone was outside and safe from the fire, Victoria phoned the municipal number for the fire department. The call was made at 4:31am.
According to Victoria, Llewellyn, who responded to the incident, only received the call from the municipal number at 4:41am and responded instantly.
In the meantime, Victoria attempted to use the firehose which was attached to her garage, to no avail, as there was no water.
Neighbours responded to their calls for help, one of them offering a fire extinguisher, which Victoria used in an attempt to extinguish the flames in the room where the fire started, but it was not enough.
Another neighbour managed to find a working firehose on the premises and proceeded to contain the blaze in this manner until the fire truck arrived.
When the fire truck arrived, it was discovered that the electric gate was not working, possibly due to a short which was created by the burning of the buzzer inside the apartment. Attempts were made to break open the motor housing of the gate in order to operate it manually, but when this did not work, Llewellyn singlehandedly lifted the gate off of its railing and gained access to the premises in this way.
He proceeded to assist the neighbour who was already containing the fire and thus managed to douse the flames and put the fire out completely.
It is estimated that the fire, at one stage, was burning at approximately 3000 degrees celsius.
“We would like to express our gratitude to our neighbours, loved ones, family and friends for all their help during and after the fire, with special thanks to Llewellyn Schwab, fireman extraordinaire!” said Victoria after the devastating ordeal.
