Shortage of fire engines, equipment put lives in danger

A shortage of fire engines in the City of Johannesburg has had a devastating effect on some residents of the city who have been counting the costs after their homes were engulfed by blaze.

In three incidents recorded this week, residents told of how they were left on their own to battle raging fires with buckets of water as fire trucks took hours to respond to emergency calls.

In Soweto, where Johannesburg Emergency Management Services (EMS) spokesperson Robert Mulaudzi conceded that the city has one fire engine servicing a population of 1.69-million people, the Chauke family in Klipspruit lost their three-bedroom house to a fire.

A car was partially damaged.

The Chauke family said they believe the fire was caused by a power surge around 2am on Monday, with the fire engine taking two-and-a-half hours to arrive at the scene.

They had called the Jabulani fire station which is about 7.6km away for help.

A team from Orange Farm, more than 30km away from Klipspruit, arrived hours later.

“There was no electricity when we went to bed. Electricity was restored at 2am. We were woken up by heavy smoke inside the house and it was already difficult to contain the fire,” said Floyd Chauke.

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Neighbours armed with buckets filled with water came out to assist but the flames proved to be too strong.

Chauke said he was disappointed that it took so long for firefighters to arrive. “The firefighters from Orange Farm arrived around 4.30am. By the time they arrived, we had already put out the fire. Everything we had as a family was already damaged.

“If Jabulani firefighters responded to our call on time maybe some of our items would have been saved,” said Chauke.

He said they lost identity documents, family picture albums, furniture, clothes and other important documents in the blaze.

Mulaudzi also conceded that most of the fire engines servicing Johannesburg were bought in 2017. They city has 15 fire engines. Of those, 13 are operational and have to service the city's seven regions.

Mulaudzi said the fire engine in Soweto is either stationed at the newly opened Protea fire station or in Jabulani. He said if a fire truck is late, there is a possibility there was more than one incident.

“Yesterday (Tuesday), we received seven fire incidents from residential areas. Incidents at residential areas are on the rise due to increased hours of load-shedding. The rolling blackouts also have a negative impact on our client response time,” Mulaudzi said.

He said if emergency services personnel are late, it would be by between 30 minutes to an hour.

Mulaudzi said among call-outs they responded to on Tuesday night was a veld fire in Bruma and a house that caught fire in Florida. No casualties were reported in all cases.

Sallie Richman of Riverlea has also told of how her house was engulfed by fire on Tuesday night.

The Richman family said firefighters from Brixton fire station, 4.3km away, responded within an hour. “The fire started around 10pm. We were assisted by members of public to prevent the fire from spreading further.

“Fire fighters arrived around 11pm but by the time they arrived, there was little they could do. The damage was already done. A big portion of our home had been destroyed by the fire,” said Richman.    

Mulaudzi said the city has allocated R200m to purchase 30 new fire engines. “The required engines will be bought over a three-year period. The first 10 engines must be purchased by the end of June next year,” said Mulaudzi.

Sowetan visited the Jabulani fire station yesterday to speak to employees.

The site also does not have an ambulance to attend to emergencies.

Some of the emergency crew at the station were found basking in the sun while others were busy on their phones in the front office. 

“Even if Jabulani shopping mall [located across the road from the fire station] can go up in flames right now, we won’t be able to assist because we don’t have all the required equipment,” said an employee.

nzimandeb@sowetan.co.za