A 98-year-old woman from Mamelodi West, Section A4, narrowly escaped death when her family house caught fire on Tuesday morning, July 23.
It is all thanks to A4 community patrollers, who swiftly responded to the call about a house on fire. Betty Maseko escaped with just minor injuries.
According to her granddaughter, Deborah, they don’t know how the fire started.
She said she was relaxing in her backyard room around 07:00 when she heard neighbours shouting that the house was on fire.
“I quickly ran to find the house on fire and smoke everywhere,” said Deborah.
She said she could not enter the house because there was smoke everywhere and her grandmother was trapped inside.
“I woke up my brother to help my grandmother, who was trapped inside the house, and the patrollers also arrived to help put out the fire and help my grandmother out of the burning house,” she said.
Louis Maseko, chairperson of A4 community patrollers, said they were informed by neighbours about a house that was burning.
He said that through their two-way radios, they managed to call other neighbouring patrollers for assistance to put out the fire.
“On arrival, we were told there was an elderly person trapped inside the house, and we quickly got to her while others were putting out the fire with water buckets.”
Maseko said Tshwane emergency services were called, but by the time they arrived, the fire was put out, and they helped with assessing the elderly person to see if she inhaled smoke.
Councillor Shiba Madonsela said the patrollers told him about the house on fire.
He rushed to the four-room family house belonging to the grandmother.
“The house has completely burned to the ground, and they lost everything inside the house, from clothes to furniture to food,” said Madonsela.
Madonsela said he informed the disaster management about the incident, and they promised to send an official to assess the house and what was lost.
Madonsela pleaded with the community to help the family with donations because disaster management will not help the family 100% with everything they have lost in the fire.
“The most important thing at this moment is to get the family clothes and food and get an electrician to fix the electricity in the house since the fire destroyed the wiring,” he said.
ALSO READ: Fire destroys shop in Pretoria West
Do you have more information about the story?
Please send us an email to bennittb@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites: Rekord East
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram
