Fire destroys church building in Thistle Grove

KINROSS – The Sunrise Christian Centre situated in Thistle Grove, suffered damage to the amount of R250 000 when a building on the church grounds burnt on Sunday afternoon, 29 September.

According to the senior pastor of the church, Past Dicky Reddy, he was out of town the day and received a phone call from a helper at the church saying that there is smoke coming from the building.

“He then jumped over the church’s fence and tried to extinguish the fire with a hose pipe, but there was no water in the fire hydrant,” said Past Reddy.

“They could not stop the fire from spreading, because there was no water.”

The community helped and tried to extinguish the fire with buckets of water, but it was too late.

The flames destroyed the building.

The fire department only arrived an hour after they were called and by that time the flames had already spread to the entire building.

The church was in the process to build extra classes to begin a Bible College next year.

The building material to build the classrooms, was stored in the building, and was also destroyed.

“There were also desks and other things stored that we were going to donate to the needy,” said Past Reddy.

The church also used this building as a soup kitchen and a place where needy children could go.

“Luckily there were no people or children in that building. What would have happened if there were children?”

Rand Water has been throttling water supply to the Kinross area since last year because Govan Mbeki Municipality failed to pay its outstanding debt.

“The water is off here every day.

“Sometimes when there is still a little bit of water in the pipes, we managed to get out a few drops.

“The water was off again on the day of the fire. We must pay our rates and taxes, but we do not have water.”

Residents in Thistle Grove were left without water again last week when the reservoir was empty and had to be filled up first. Past Reddy believes the community and church members would have been able to extinguish the fire if they had water in Thistle Grove on that particular day.

“It feels as if Thistle Grove is forgotten by the municipality and always last on the list when it comes to service delivery.”

Ridge Times reported in September about Govan Mbeki Municipality’s Rand Water debt of more than R179-million.

Rand Water announced at the time that they would be throttling the water supply in the Govan Mbeki municipal area with 40 per cent if the municipality did not pay.

Ridge Times asked the communications department of Govan Mbeki Municipality about Rand Water and if the agreements to pay off the outstanding account was reached on Monday morning.

However they did not comment at the time of going to print.