Fire destroys shacks

“Between 40 to 50 shacks in the Marathon informal settlement were destroyed in a blaze.”

This was the report the Germiston City News received from an anonymous caller, on Thursday, September 11.

The caller alleged the fire took place on Wednesday night, and that the responding fire departments took too long to arrive on scene.

When they did arrive, they allegedly were unable to battle the blaze, because they had no water.

“The lack of organisation caused the level of destruction to be greater than it should have been,” the caller said.

The GCN approached the Ekurhuleni Disaster and Emergency Management Services in an attempt to confirm this account of events.

William Ntladi, media liaison officer, released the following statement: “A multiple shack fire call was received at around 7.47pm on Wednesday, September 10.

“Three stations were activated to assist in the incident; mainly Primrose, as the primary response station, backed up by the Bedfordview and Edenvale fire stations, respectively.

“Three patients were given pre-hospital medical treatment, prior to transportation to Bertha Gxowa Hospital, in Germiston, by ambulance, for care of minor burn wounds and smoke inhalation.

“The police had to be called to intervene, due to the vicious reaction by the community towards the fire fighters.

“Smaller grass unit vehicles had to be used to reach the burning site of the informal settlement; bigger vehicles had a challenge as far as the widths of the roads are concerned.

“Subsequent to that, water had to be shuttled in between the two points.

“The smaller grass unit vehicles had a smaller tank capacity of about 800lt of water, which is not enough, hence their tanks were running empty.

“That didn`t mean we had no water on scene at all.

“Subsequent to the violent reaction of the community members, firefighters felt intimidated and couldn`t exercise their duties effectively.

“Thanks so much to the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT-Programme) members from the same community of the Marathon informal settlement, who assisted in extinguishing the blazes.”