Grieving families will be helped to bury loved ones after house fire

Families left reeling after a fire engulfed a house in Pretoria West will be helped to bury their loved ones, said Gauteng human settlements, urban planning and co-operative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) MEC Lebogang Maile.

Maile made this commitment on Thursday while visiting two families at the gutted home in Kirkney village.

Five people perished in the fire and two were injured during the early hours of Wednesday.

“We will be providing psychosocial support through the city. We can also confirm that we have heard the pleas of the families with the burial of their loved ones. Through the city we have been co-ordinating everything and we will be helping to bury the deceased,” he said.

Maile said the city, NGOs and businesses were planning to assist the families. Their efforts will be co-ordinated through the City of Tshwane.

It was learnt on Thursday that one of the five deceased was Kwena Pheme, 41, a domestic worker tending to the family’s children.

The family also revealed that four children who died in the fire belonged to a 45-year-old woman who was rescued with a boy from the burning house. The woman and child were taken to hospital for treatment.

Moshema Mosia, divisional chief of fire and rescue operations in Tshwane, took Maile through the burnt house. 

Family spokesperson and cousin Kwena Dladla said they were traumatised.

“We are very traumatised. It’s so sad because it's the first time in my life to experience this thing, especially because we buried my uncle in July. So we were still mourning my uncle and then now this thing happens. Four boys are gone, we are left with the small one, so we are shocked. It is so sad,” she said.

Dladla said she got a call from a cousin staying in Delmas telling her to rush home.

“She said I must go check because she received a call from my uncle's wife that she is burning with the children and did not know what to do. She told me that the ambulance had already taken them to the hospital so I went there to check on her.

“She said she just heard her four boys and the nanny screaming to please come and help. Her bedroom is at the back. When she opened her door there was smoke coming to her, so she closed it immediately, took a blanket, wet it with water and covered herself with the small boy. She took the phone and tried to call the neighbours to come and help but all of a sudden she couldn’t hear the voices of the other children in the bedrooms,” she said.

Maile said an investigation would be conducted.

“One of the preliminary observations is that the walls of the house were not built in such a way that it could separate the different rooms,” he said.

TimesLIVE