Durban - The eThekwini Municipality suspects that arson may have been behind the fire that destroyed more than 100 cars at the Queensburgh metro police pound last week.
This was suggested by city manager S’bu Sithole and mayor James Nxumalo on Tuesday as councillors in the executive committee asked for more details about the inferno.
They are hoping that the two-pronged investigation by police and the city’s fire department will provide clarity about what happened.
Sithole said his suspicions emanated from a decision by the city on Tuesday last week to auction some of the cars.
He said: “It’s a municipal pound - not a depot. Most of the cars were ready to be auctioned. There’s an investigation at the moment to look at the cause, but at this stage we are not certain what caused it.”
Weekend reports on the fire attributed the tinder-dry conditions and gales that battered Durban last week as the cause of the blaze.
Earlier that day, firefighters spent hours battling blazes fanned by dry, strong winds in Queensburgh.
Sithole said the investigation would determine if anyone was culpable or if it had been a continuation of the earlier fire.
“The fire department is obviously investigating with their specialists. The police are also involved because we don’t want to speculate. We want to determine if it was through a deliberate act of arson or it was just an innocent thing that transpired,” he said.
He was hoping to receive a report soon.
Nxumalo said the fact that a decision to auction the cars was taken on the Tuesday and the cars were burnt two days later made one think twice.
“It does raise suspicions, but we are unable to say exactly what happened,” he said.
The Mercury