Family speaks about the devastating fire that gutted their house

A displaced family recounted how a massive fire rapidly spread through their home, leaving them no choice but to flee for safety.
The blaze began on the evening of May 25, destroying five families’ homes on 16th Avenue near Joe Nhlanhla Street in Alexandra.

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While some nearby residents managed to salvage identity documents and small furniture with the help of neighbours, others escaped empty-handed.

Richard Makwela, a senior resident whose home was burned, was inside when the fire started. “My boy, who had gone outside, warned me, shouting, ‘Get out, get out.’ I thought to myself, let me grab a few things, but then I heard the fire coming; it was strong,” he recalled, as he sat on a chair in the middle of the ruins of his home, staring at the charred walls, collapsed roof, and piles of burned furniture
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His granddaughter, Dorothy Makwela Mapheto, was returning from work when she saw the flames. She said when she got close, she noticed that the neighbours’ house was burning. “I thought, let me go and check my grandfather’s house… When I checked, my grandfather was standing by the door. When I asked him what was happening, he said it is burning, we cannot even go in.”

Community members called firefighters and the fire was extinguished, but their homes were already destroyed. The spokesperson of the City of Johannesburg’s Emergency Management Services Robert Mulaudzi, said firefighters responded to a fire incident reported at a 12-roomed house in Alexandra. He noted that they treated seven patients for smoke inhalation, and one patient who had sustained injuries was transported to Masakhane Clinic, and then to Charlotte Maxeke Hospital for further medical care.

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The affected families are not certain how the fire started. Mapheto said it started next door and it spread quickly, destroying everything in its wake. “There is nothing that left this house,” she said, emphasising that everything they had, including furniture, clothes, identity documents and her grandfather and mother’s medication, perished in the fire. She said her children could not go to school on May 26, because their school uniforms had also perished in the fire. “We have to go to school and tell them the reason why the learners could not come to school, and also ask if it is okay for the learners to come to school without a uniform.”

Her grandfather and mother were offered accommodation by a community member who lives nearby. Mapheto said she requested leave at work so that she could help at home. As they begin to pick the pieces up and rebuild, she said the main priority was to fetch medication for Makwela and her mother, and to get new identity documents.

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