Devastating fire amid storm leaves families homeless in Paarl
Residents of Smartie Town in Paarl were woken up by a fire on Sunday morning that burnt and destroyed seven houses as well as the dwellings of a number of backyard dwellers.
Residents claim that the fire started on an open field that had garbage.
Rayno Engelbrecht said he is one of the Candice Street residents in Smartie Town who lost their homes in the blazing fire. He said he was preparing to go to work when the fire started.
“There was fire on open land; when the wind blew so strong the fire spread and started to destroy one house after another. It was very early in the morning; I was on my way to work but I had to cancel going to work,” said Mr Engelbrecht.
He said the situation was so bad with the wind and fire smoke causing poor visibility. Fortunately there were no injuries reported beside some dogs.
Mr Engelbrecht said it could have been worse if the fire brigade didn't come in time, although people didn’t manage to save their belongings besides the clothes that they were wearing. “They couldn't save anything, even personal ID documents, birth certificates, everything was burnt.”
Affected families were allocated shelter in an old library while others found accommodation with relatives.
Another resident, Muhammad Erasmus said the fire department came early but claimed they did not extinguish the fire completely.
“When the strong winds came up, it ignited the fire again. And after that everything went down in seconds. I lost everything. I built up my place 14 years ago, and there you can see – there is nothing”.
The Drakenstein municipality said in a statement that the Drakenstein municipal area suffered significant damage due to gale force winds and many households also had to cope with power outages and water service interruptions. It also said strong winds sparked multiple fires across Drakenstein.
“The safety of our residents, our staff and infrastructure is our main focus. As a municipality we have also been taking an eagle-eye approach and have been assisting at incidents as far as our capacity allows,” said executive mayor, Stephen Korabie.