Can VDM cope with the fire emergencies?

Date: 30 September 2018 By: Jo Robinson

Last Wednesday, the Makhado Municipal Social Club in Louis Trichardt burned down. This occurred close on the heels of the runaway fires east of Kameel Street in the Ridgeway area and the explosion of an electricity box left to burn outside of the cemetery in town the previous Friday.

Once again firefighters had to make do with basic “bakkie bed equipment” that was not designed to tackle serious blazes. As the club burned, sparks and embers landed in the nearby bushes and saw residents trying to fight the flames with personal garden hoses connected to their own boreholes. On all three occasions, no fire engine was to be seen.

The Zoutpansberger queried the Vhembe Municipality’s spokesperson, Mr Matodzi Ralushai, both telephonically and by email last week as to whether the Makhado fire department's fire truck was out of service. The paper also asked whether the fire department was properly equipped with safety gear in the event of a serious fire or accident. Residents who have been involved in these recent fires are concerned about blazes getting out of control, buildings being left to burn down, and the public being placed at serious risk of death, injury, and the loss of property.

Matodzi responded too late for his reply to be included in last week’s article. According to him, the Vhembe District has a total of eight heavy-duty-pump fire engines, of which five are currently operational. They have 13 fire and rescue unit Land Cruisers, of which nine are currently operational.

Matodzi further stated that the municipality was expecting the delivery of two fire trucks, which would improve this capacity. He continued that “there is still a need to improve equipment, and the municipality considers it one of its key priorities, particularly as the demand keeps increasing. The municipality is currently experiencing high fire risk, and to improve responses all measures will be considered, including applying Section 11 of the Fire Brigade Service Act of 1987, which states that a controlling authority may, with a view to more efficient employment of its service, conclude a written agreement with any other controlling authority in terms of which the parties undertake to co-operate as may be agreed upon to make available its material or equipment to the controlling authority.”

Given that the size of Vhembe is 25 597km² the newspaper immediately asked Matodzi how many, if any, of the operational vehicles were allocated to Makhado, but as yet has not received his reply. Residents rightly say that a fire engine several hundred kilometres away is unlikely to be helpful in an emergency fire situation. Either way, people want to know where working fire engines and rescue equipment are situated within such a vast municipality and how long these would take in reaching Louis Trichardt in case of emergency.

On 20 September, following the complete razing of the social club, PR councillor Jonas Lukheli of the local Democratic Alliance (DA) spoke to the newspaper about the conditions under which it had burnt down. He said that the fire had started in the thatch of the building from a worker’s burning refuse, who he said had clearly not had any awareness induction regarding fire awareness. “There should have been fire extinguishers or fire hydrants in place in case of fire,” said Lukheli, “but there were none at all. Further to this, the municipal water in the area was off, creating the potential for a deadly disaster if there had been high winds at the time of the blaze.”

“Since this is not the first time this has happened to the Municipal Social Club,” continued Lukheli, “when this fire broke out, we expected that by now some precautionary measures would have been put in place in case a similar situation occurred. The fact that nothing had been done shows the clear negligence of the people responsible for the use of the people’s hard-earned tax money.”

Lukheli said that the burnt-down building had not been there for very long after being rebuilt after the previous fire, which was caused by an electric fault. He said that one thing that could be counted on from this municipality was for them to get tenders for a third building in the pipeline quickly. He expressed hope that the new building will be properly equipped in case of fire or emergency as the law states.

Not only would the safety of anyone in this building have been in question, but the lack of both municipal water and hydrants at the time of the fire put residents and people surrounding the burning building in danger too. From a taxpayer’s point of view, standing by helplessly and watching a costly structure burn down to the ground because of a lack of preventative and protective equipment that is a legal requirement as set out in the law of South Africa provides yet another reason for residents of Vhembe to question whether this municipality has their interests at heart at all.

Viewed: 849

Jo Robinson

Jo joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in 2018 pursuing a career in journalism after many years of writing fiction and non-fiction for other sectors.

More photos...