A family of five narrowly escaped a horrific incident after their vehicle caught fire on Steve Bantu Biko Street, near Laerskool Klipfontein.

According to Tombi Fourie, on the morning of January 8, she had been travelling from Ogies to Del Judor with her husband and three children, in their car pulling a trailer full of furniture as they were relocating.

As they passed through Klipfontein, they started noticing smoke coming from the back of the car and immediately stopped to get out.

“Everyone got out and as soon as I had taken out my lastborn, who had been sleeping in the back seat, the fire started,” Tombi said, adding that luckily, the community, which witnessed the incident, came to their rescue.

“They started offloading stuff from the trailer, which had also caught fire,” she said.

The family was rushed to the hospital for medical examinations, and fortunately, all five of them came out unharmed.

“My family and I are fine. We suffered a great deal of shock, but we are fine,” Tombi said.

On top of the car that got burned beyond repair in the fire suspected to have been caused by a wiring problem, the family also lost their cellphones, curtains, beddings, spectacles, and keys, among other items.

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“We are really grateful to the community, which rushed to help us because had it not been for them, we would have lost a lot of things to the fire,” she said.

A car caught fire at Steve Bantu Biko Street this morning, leaving a family shaken
Read more here: https://t.co/9gMYYe4DIQ#WitbankNews #eMalahleni #fire #car #family

— WitbankNews (@WitbankN) January 8, 2026

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