Cape Town - A seven-year-old boy was killed and close to 300 people were left displaced in separate shack fires over the weekend.
Brian Olifant, 7, was killed when a fire broke out, destroying four shacks in Wallacedene.
City of Cape Town Disaster Risk Management spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said the fiire broke out on Sunday at around 10am.
Solomons-Johannes said a community worker had said Brian was the second child in the family to be killed in a fire.
Community workers said they suspected the fire was ignited by a child playing with matches. However, city fire and rescue spokesman Theo Layne said investigators at the scene found that the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit.
Solomons-Johannes said 10 other people were displaced as a result of the fire.
In another incident, 67 shacks were destroyed in a blaze and 270 people were left homeless at the Ekuphumleni informal settlement in Dunoon near Milnerton. The fire broke out on Sunday around 11am.
Layne said it was suspected that it was caused by a cigarette left unattended.
“The cigarette ignited (clothing) which spread to the rest of the shack.”
Solomons-Johannes said no injuries were reported and a community centre in the area was used as an emergency shelter. He said humanitarian relief was arranged and building materials had been delivered.
Layne warned people to be careful when using cooking with fire at this time of the year, especially in informal settlements.
“We find that fires are mostly started by these braais, and what is worse is that people sometimes cannot extinguish the fires properly.”
He said that although there had not been many shack fires during the festive season, his department had received more than 100 reports of vegetation fires.
“Fires happen all the time in open fields; sometimes we find that it was a cigarette butt thrown out the window of a car, or someone walking through the fields.
“Also we found that a lot of malicious vegetation fires are started by children playing with matches.”
In the past few weeks, firefighting crews have been stretched due to the large vegetation fires caused by dry, sunny weather and New Year’s Eve celebrations.
On New Year’s Eve two large vegetation fires broke out and several small fires ignited in the Cape Flats.
Layne reported that the first day of the new year was chaotic.
In Noordhoek, two helicopters were called in to water bomb a vegetation fire. Layne said conventional vehicles were unable to reach the fire.
On the same day another large fire broke out in Ocean View and teams of firefighters, along with two helicopters, were called to the scene.
Both fires were suspected to have been caused by firecrackers.
Cape Argus