Fire wipes 250 homes in Kayamandi

Hundreds of displaced Kayamandi residents have started rebuilding after their homes were burnt down on Monday afternoon in Kayamandi Township in Stellenbosch.

Eyewitness Mvuyisi Ntantala said the fire started in a locked house while its owners were at work at the time.

“I thought that someone was burning some papers, since it’s a regular thing in this area, so I went back to my house, but [then] I noticed that the smoke was getting stronger … That’s when I started calling others,” said Ntantala.

Ntantala lost all his belongings in the fire including his identity document and his matric certificate.

“The fire spread rapidly in different areas while we were still trying to fight it,” explained Ntantala.

Most residents were at work when the fire broke in their homes.

Residents from both Snake Valley and Zone O helped to fight the fire using buckets, but most residents were watching the fire carefully to avoid the repeat of 2013 when people thought that the fire was too small to spread but it ended up destroying hundreds of home and leaving thousands homeless at Zone O.

This time residents took their frustration out on the firefighters, throwing stones at them for arriving late. Residents say they phoned for help before the fire had spread.

The fire, which started around 3pm, was extinguished at 7pm.

Portia Jansen, Community Development Coordinator at Stellenbosch Municipality, “There are at least 250 people who gave their names as heads of the houses [that were destroyed], but we will still need to verify it.”

Since February, at least two people have died in fires around Kayamandi. Fires are common in Enkanini, an informal settlement in Kayamandi that does not have electricity.