A fire caused considerable damage to a business on Loopspruit Avenue in Fochville at the onset of the long weekend.

According to the manager of Emergency Management Services at the West Rand District Municipality, Mr Nico Kahts, the fire broke out at the BuildPlus hardware store just after 15:00 on Friday, 22 September. Bystanders called the fire department, who managed to quench the fire.

Despite this, about half the store’s stock was burnt, causing over R1 million damage.

Kahts says the fire department had to work swiftly to stop the fire from spreading to other stores in the same building. If that had happened, the damage would have been over ten times more.

Although the investigation into the fire continued at printing time, authorities suspect an electrical fault caused the fire.