Fire ravages Weltevreden Park home
The fire is believed to have started in the children's room shortly after 8am today.
Residents of Weltevreden Park were on their way to work this morning when they were greeted by the terrible sight of a house on fire on the corner of JG Strydom Road and Amarant Street.
Two of these residents, Nishan Naidoo and Tekkie Moyo, were shocked to see smoke billowing from the home and knew they had to do something to help. When they got to the property, they found that a Beagle Watch Security reaction officer, Musa Matsheke, had already responded to the alarm which Beagle Watch received in their control room.
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When Nishan and Tekkie arrived, they found Musa was already fighting the fire after having already gained access via the company’s access code for the property. Nishan quickly grabbed the hosepipe while Musa grabbed a bucket and started bailing water out of the swimming pool onto the fire.
The City of Joburg’s Emergency Management Services (EMS) were quick to react as well, and were soon on the scene to extinguish and try to prevent the fire from spreading to the rest of the home. They were swift and successful, containing the flames in the back portion of the house.
According to Theresa de Klerk, from the EMS’ Public Information, Education and Relations department, the fire caused severe damage in what was believed to be its room of origin. “It also caused some structural damage to the adjacent rooms, as well as one of the passageways,” she said.
While only the back portion of the house sustained structural damage, the majority of the house sustained smoke damage according to De Klerk. “We also had to bring down some parts of the roof to make sure the fire didn’t spread all over the house, as the roof can often be an easy way for a fire to spread,” she stated.
The owner of the house, Babalo Mpoyiya, had just arrived at work when he received the call that his house was on fire. “We are really shocked by this, it is terrible for us especially at this time of the year,” he stated. “Luckily my daughter was at school when it started, so there was nobody at home.”
At the time of writing, the inspection to determine the cause of the fire had not yet been conducted.
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