Fire leaves 16 people homeless

Two Freedom Park grandmothers wept as they pleaded for help to rebuild their houses, which were gutted in a blaze.

Rose Magdalene Stevens, 63, and her neighbour Jasmina Hoffman, 57, were woken up by screams of a fire in the early hours of Monday September 26.

Now they, their children and grandchildren, either live in a makeshift wood-and-iron structure across from their homes, at the corner of Bayern Munich and Real Madrid, or with family or friends.

“I don’t have a place to sleep,” Ms Hoffman said.

“We had to put up a structure for shelter.”

Her grandson Jordan Hoffman, 13, had run into the fire to help rescue his four-month-old brother.

He had also raised the alarm about the flames that had engulfed two brick houses and two wendy houses in the backyards, which were gutted, leaving more a number of people homeless.

Ms Stevens lives with her two daughters, one of whom is wheelchair bound, her husband and their children.

A few years ago her daughter got caught in crossfire and was left paralysed.

“Everything in my house is gone,” she said.

They received food and clothes from charity groups but Ms Stevens said: “I just need a place to stay. Not these burned out sheets”.

Community worker Widhaad Williams told the Plainsman that the residents needed counselling.

“I just saw the flames and when I look up to their houses I have flashbacks. So, what must they have experienced and look at how they are living now,” she said.

“They have been traumatised and they are drained because of this ordeal that they have survived,” she said.

Ms Williams said with the festive season approaching, these families should be the first recipients of any goodwill.

The children were due to start school yesterday, Tuesday October 11, without books, school uniforms or stationery.

Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson Jermaine Carelse said the cause of the fire was “undetermined”.

He said that they had received a call at 1.28am and that four fire stations responded with various firefighting appliances.

“Three formal dwellings and four informal structures were severely damaged and 16 persons were displaced. No injuries were reported,’’ he said.

He said the blaze was extinguished about two hours later.

Disaster risk management spokesperson, Charlotte Powell, said an assessment had been completed and that they had asked the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) to provide assistance.