A house in Strubenvale caught fire at around 11.15am last Sunday, with some of its residents still in the house.
Cynthia Clark (31) and her wife Anastasia (22), Michelle van der Walt (18) and Anngelique Putter (13) were all in the house when the incident occurred.
Anastasia’s mother Anna van der Walt (42), her baby brother Danté Hendrikse (1) and her stepfather Rodney Hendrikse (56) were outside in the yard when a fire started in Anna’s bedroom.
Michelle, Anastasia’s sister, was asleep when she was woken up by Anastasia.
At this point, nothing was out of sorts, until Michelle got up and walked past the bedroom and heard a strange sound coming from inside the room.
She walked in to investigate when she saw the bed was on fire.
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“It spread so quickly, as soon as the headboard caught alight, the room was engulfed in flames,” she says.
Cynthia and Anastasia heard Michelle’s screams and immediately knew something was wrong.
They shouted to her to find out where she is and heard “bedroom” and ran to her.
The flames have grown rapidly and Michelle was trapped in the room and could not get out.
She thought quickly and grabbed a baby clothing item and covered her nose and mouth.
Cynthia blindly ran into the room and shouted to Michelle to follow her voice, she reached out, felt Michelle’s hand and pulled her to safety.
Anngelique, Anastasia’s cousin who was visiting the family, was in the shower at the time and heard the shouting to “get out of the house”.
She was wrapped in a towel when Cynthia pulled her out of the house.
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Cynthia ran back into the house to grab only their cellphones.
“We had to call for help, there was no time to grab anything else, the whole house was on fire by this time.” she says.
During this, Anastasia had an asthma attack.
“We stood outside and watched our house burn down,” says Cynthia.
“It happened too quickly.
“We had nothing left.”
She says the one good thing about this, was the way the community came together to help them in their time of need.
“Within minutes of the fire starting, there were so many people, our neighbours and other community members, who came and tried to help where they can.”
One such a neighbour, Barry van Tonder, who, upon realising there are gas bottles in the kitchen, ran in, disconnected the bottles and carried it out of the house and out of the fire’s range.
“We are so thankful to each and every person who helped us that day,” says Anastasia.
They especially thanked the Strubenvale CPF, their neighbours, Antionette Karsten and Sarina Grobler.
“These people have restored our hope in humanity,” says Cynthia.
In the aftermath, community members helped the family with a few pieces of clothing and food.
The family has moved into a different house a few blocks away, but have no furniture, save for a bed that survived the fire.
Cynthia says they waited a while for the firefighters to arrive, but commends the amazing support they received from the community.
The family says they are grateful to have escaped the fire with no one hurt but mourn the loss of sentimental items gained through their travels and life experiences.
Cynthia and Anastasia also house rescue cats, which have all escaped the fire and are unharmed.
One of the cats is still missing, but they believe it escaped and ran off.
The couple says the fire started due to an electrical fault in the roof which leads to the plugs in the room, but the official report was not yet made available to them.
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