The aftermath of an earlier shack fire in February which destroyed 70 shacks in Langrug informal settlement. The latest fire, which occurred this week, killed one man and left three families homeless. Photo by Daneel Knoetze.
5 March 2015
As the country’s attention was transfixed on the Table Mountain fires, another blaze claimed one life and left three families homeless in a Franschhoek informal settlement.
Abraham van Wyk died after his shack caught alight shortly before dawn on Monday morning. The fire which started in Van Wyk’s shack, which he shared with two other people, spread through a sparsely populated section of Langrug informal settlement, on the foothills above Franschhoek. Neighbour Barend Paulse escaped from his shack, just in time to see it go up in flames.
Shortly before 5am, Van Wyk’s shack was already gutted by flames, says Paulse.
“At that stage, we did not know whether everyone was safe. It’s only once we checked on everyone that we realised [Van Wyk] was missing,” he says. Van Wyk’s body was then found in the remains of the shack.
This is the second shack fire in less than a month in Langrug. In February, 70 structures in another part of the settlement burned down when a woman forgot to switch off her stove during load shedding. An hour after the electricity came back on, the stove ignited, according to the community.
But in this latest instance, it is probably the complete lack of electrification that is to blame, says community leader Nobathembu Fata.
“We do not know the cause yet, but that area is not electrified. This means that people are using paraffin lamps, candles and other open flames inside. If those households could just receive electricity, we would see a decrease in these fires,” she says.
Meanwhile, Paulse, a worker at a wine farm, has welcomed a building kit from the Stellenbosch municipality.
“But, unfortunately it is not enough. Our structure was large and all our possessions are gone. We have been sleeping outside since Monday, because we don’t have savings to build a decent shack,” he says.
Stellenbosch municipality had not replied to queries about the fire and relief for the affected families at time of publication.