Johannesburg - The latest fire incident comes just days after the City of Joburg Metro Centre building also caught fire.
Joburg MMC for Public Safety Dr Mgcini Tshwaku has called for building owners and government departments to invest in fire safety risk assessment plans.
This comes after yet another government building caught fire in the inner city of Johannesburg.
Members of the Johannesburg Emergency Management Services (EMS) were forced to rush to the South African Revenue Service (Sars) building on Frederick and Rissik streets in Marshalltown, Johannesburg, after its archiving department caught fire on Wednesday afternoon.
He said the fire department had been placed on high alert to ensure the spate of fire incidents in the city centre were contained and put to an end, adding that the department has issued out patrollers to go around the city.
“One thing that we are going to call for is that each and every building must do a fire safety risk assessment plan because these fires are mind-boggling. The fire here happened in the basement within the archiving area, and there is no one who goes in there,” he said.
Johannesburg EMS spokesperson Nana Masechaba Kgiba also said the fire happened in the storage room, which is in the basement.
“We can confirm that the fire has been contained at the basement level, which is used as storage. We can confirm for now that everyone is safe and is out of the building,’’ she said.
The latest fire incident comes just days after the City of Joburg Metro Centre building also caught fire allegedly due to faulty and old transformers, which caused parts of the building to catch fire, resulting in the evacuation of city officials, including mayor Kabelo Gwamanda, the Speaker of Council, Colleen Makhubele, and others.
This is because this building, located in Braamfontein, houses the offices of these officials, including city manager Floyd Brink, among others.
The city has been on fire since the gas explosion near Bree Street in July, which was followed by a fire in Marshalltown, where 77 people perished after a five-storey building caught fire on August 31. Another fire was subsequently reported two weeks later, also in Marshalltown.
Kgiba added that a preliminary investigation will be conducted to determine the real cause of the fire.
"We will do a preliminary investigation of what caused the fire,’’ she said.
The Star