Kameeldrift shack dwellers watched helplessly as fire and storm wreaked havoc

Residents of Kameeldrift informal settlement plot 175, east of Pretoria, painfully watched their shacks burn down as flames, fanned by the sudden spring wind storm on Tuesday night, engulfed their homes. 

Freddy Pienaar, ward 87 councillor, said a fire set at a nearby dump site to burn waste had spread to the settlement due the high winds just after 9pm.

He said at least 90 shacks burnt down and 150 people were affected.

“There was nothing I could do, we had to run. Corrugated steel was flying everywhere. It was so painful to watch,” said one of the displaced victims, David Raselabe. 

Raselabe, who has lived in the area since 2012, said he was asleep but woke up upon hearing a strong wind blowing. When he went outside, he saw flames. “There was a huge fire. It first caught one shack and spread from one to another.”

The 42-year-old said he has lost everything in the fire.

“I didn’t manage to escape with anything, even the clothes that I am wearing are borrowed, I don’t have anything.

“I have a child and she hasn’t eaten, she is even walking barefoot. The only clothes she has now are the ones she is wearing.”

We couldn’t save anything, we had to save our lives and run. Imagine looking at your shack burning with your valuables inside while you escaped with nothing.

—  Resident Kamogelo Modiba

He said it was like living a nightmare.

“When I realised that I had lost everything and I have to start from scratch, I felt like I was going to go crazy. I couldn’t believe that I lost everything. I don’t have my bank card, I don’t have my ID, I don’t know where to go. I don’t know where I will sleep tonight.”

Kamogelo Modiba, who also lost her home, said she first felt a strong wind outside and then saw sparks entering the shack.

“I was surprised and went outside, that is when I saw that there was a fire at the back where they were burning the dump site. The fire was blown by the wind into the shack area. It got worse after catching a car and it exploded and spread.

“We couldn’t save anything, we had to save our lives and run,” she said.

Modiba said it was a painful scene to watch.

“Imagine looking at your shack burning with your valuables inside while you escaped with nothing.”

But she felt fortunate she and her neighbours survived.

“We just thank God for life and that no-one died from the fire. If we were sleeping I am sure that I wouldn’t be here talking, right now we would have been counting bodies,” she said.

Modiba said this was the first incident of such magnitude she had endured.

“We have had shacks burning before, but it was only two to three. This time it was worse. What happened was unbelievable.

“The way the wind was blowing, it wasn’t normal, it seemed like there was something inside,” she said.

Joseph Mogale said the fire was caused by the burning at the dump site.

“The wind came and blew the fire. There was a strong gusting wind that brought the fire to the shacks. No-one could extinguish that fire, and we had to all run away. All of us were just looking, we couldn’t stop that fire because there was a car that exploded and made the fire worse. Some of us took our blankets and ran,” he said.

The 48-year-old blamed the municipality for the dump site.

“We don’t know what will happen if that wind comes back again tonight,” he said, describing the incident.

“We ran about a kilometre to the police station, and we could see the flames,” he said.

Maria Maluleke said she was woken up by the heat in her shack and then saw a huge flame.

“When I woke up the fire was very hot, even when far from me. I tried to go inside the shack to pack, but I couldn’t because the fire was hot,” Maluleke said.

She said she was shaking and afraid when she watched the fire spread.

“Everyone who saw this will not tell you the full picture of what exactly happened. We have lost, our children have lost everything too and they have to go to school.”

Pienaar said the victims would possibly be placed in a church hall as intermediate intervention and would later see if they could be assisted in rebuilding.

Meanwhile, SA Weather Service (Saws) has described the windy weather that wreaked havoc in parts of the country as a microburst, while a meteorologist has described it as a gust front.

According to Saws, a microburst is a localised column of sinking air (also known as a downdraft) within a thunderstorm and is usually less than or equal to 4km in diameter. 

It is said these can cause extensive damage upon reaching the Earth’s surface, and in some instances, can be life-threatening. 

“In the case of a dry microburst, the precipitation evaporates aloft within the downdraft, causing the downdraft air to become colder and denser, thus accelerating the cold air towards the ground, under the influence of gravity. This phenomenon is typically associated with high-cloud base thunderstorms, as was the case [on Tuesday]. This weather phenomenon is capable of uprooting trees and lifting off entire building roofs,” said Saws.

Labelling the occurrence as a gust front, severe storm meteorologist Craig Powell said it happens when air descends towards the ground during a thunderstorm and once it hits the ground it radiates/spreads outwards from the point of contact with the ground. 

“These events are very common when it comes to thunderstorms, but they are usually experienced as a sudden increase in wind speed (usually, but not always, quite cool in temperature) without any damage. Each thunderstorm can produce its own gust front or amplify one that is already occurring,” he said.

Powell said under the right conditions, gust fronts can be very damaging and can travel great distances (sometimes hundreds of kilometres from where it started and the thunderstorm that caused it).

“Unfortunately, Tuesday night was one of those nights where conditions were just right for very strong gust fronts, and it was compounded by the fact that two of them came together over the northern part of Gauteng (Centurion/Pretoria). One came in from the southeast (which caused damage in northeastern Free State and the East Rand) and the other came in from the northwest (which caused damage in the Hartbeespoort, Valhalla and Laudium areas),” Powell said. 

He said the gust fronts were evident on the Saws radar data, the stations that report metar information on the Saws aviation website and there were glimpses of them on satellite imagery.

Saws said Tuesday afternoon, observed wind speed exceeded 50 knots (114kph) over Harrismith, Free State, between 4.15pm and 4.35pm, which is consistent with the typical strength of a dry microburst.

“Later in the evening, towards 9pm, strong surface wind gusts of 40 to 46 knots, in association with thunderstorm activity, were reported over the central and southern parts of North West. Much later still, between 9pm and 10pm, reports of extremely strong winds, as well as widespread blowing dust, were reported at many localities across Gauteng, including (but not limited to) Soshanguve, Mamelodi, the greater Pretoria area and Centurion,” Saws said.

The weather service said wind measurements suggest gusts slightly in excess of 100kph at these localities.

“Interestingly, though thunder was heard, generally very little precipitation arrived at ground level,” it said.

Saws said significant damage was reported over the eastern and the north-eastern parts of Free State, eastern and the south-eastern parts of North West. 

“In Bethlehem, over 50 houses were reported to have been affected by the adverse weather conditions. Moreover, significant wind damage was reported at Moruleng Mall, about 60km from Rustenburg. There were also numerous reports of wind-related damage such as uprooted trees, damage to farming equipment and blown off roofs from various parts of the eastern Free State yesterday afternoon,” Saws said.

Powell said gust fronts are normal and they occur very frequently during thunderstorm season.

“It is only the severity that varies on any given day with thunderstorms, it is inevitable that it will happen again. For them to get worse it would depend on how the conditions that favour such situations change and to know that would require a lot of research,” he said.

Some residents of Pretoria took to social media during the storm to describe what they had seen.

Carolyn Ann Dewrance from Pretoria North said: “It is like watching a cyclone. Trees being hammered and dust everywhere. There was some lighting very high up. I don’t know what this storm will become or if it will fade away during the night, I have never seen the power of the wind like this in all my life.”

Meanwhile, the weather service has issued a yellow level 2 warning, saying the eastern and north-eastern parts of Limpopo are expected to be at risk of developing dry microbursts later on Wednesday which will cause strong damaging surface winds like Tuesday night.