Naeem Deedat, who lost his wife and four children in a fire that engulfed the family home in Ormonde, Joburg. Naeem Deedat, who lost his wife and four children in a fire that engulfed the family home in Ormonde, Joburg.
A child’s pillow, which accidentally fell onto a electric heater during the night, might have caused the fire that engulfed a Joburg family’s home, leaving four children and their mother dead.
It was just hours after the devastating fire at his Ormonde home that a shocked but calm Naeem Deedat explained to journalists how he had escaped the blaze in which his wife and young children perished.
The fire, which started in the early hours of Wednesday morning, spread quickly from the children’s bedroom, through the two-bedroom-house in southern Joburg, causing the roof to collapse.
Deedat’s wife Suraya, 31, and their four children died in the children’s bedroom – where the fire is believed to have started – apparently of smoke inhalation.
Speaking outside the burnt house on Wednesday morning, Deedat said he had woken up in the early hours to his wife’s screams. She had gone to investigate a burning smell coming from their children’s bedroom.
Deedat said he immediately got up and ran into the adjacent bedroom, where he saw that a pillow that had fallen on the bar heater had caught fire.
Running between the bathroom and bedroom with water, he did his best to douse the flames.
“But they just kept getting bigger,” he said.
It is not clear what happened to Suraya and the four children – aged four, three, one and six months – during this time. It seems they did not leave the burning room. All the windows were burglar-proofed.
Deedat said he had shouted for help from the bathroom window, but when he returned to the bedroom, he realised his family were trapped.
The front-door entrance to the home was by then also on fire. With no way of escaping, he ran to his bedroom, the only room where the air was still breathable.
A short while later, neighbour Ashley Jones arrived. He he was able to saw through the bars on Deedat’s bedroom window with an angle grinder.
“I heard the tiles (of the roof) crackling, and I thought maybe there had been a break-in,” Jones said.
He said he had spotted the flames at about 2.45am and realised the Deedat home was burning.
Jones called the fire brigade and ran for his tools to try to rescue the family.
He said he was able to drag Deedat out through a bedroom window.
By that stage, there were no sounds coming from the second bedroom, where Suraya was trapped with the four children.
“I was a lifeguard for many years, but this was the most traumatising thing I’ve ever seen. I was there and I couldn’t do anything,” he said.
Police spokeswoman Warrant Officer Lorraine von Emmerik said a member of the West Rand Dog Unit and a neighbour had managed to get into the side of the house where Deedat was.
“He had told his family to leave the house on the other end, while he tried to douse the fire. But the family were then stuck on the other end of the house,” she said.
Von Emmerik said police did not suspect foul play and an inquest docket had been opened.
Wednesday’s fire comes after one in Joburg in March in which three children and their father were killed at their home in Highlands North.
Police said a hot-plate stove had set the house alight.
Mandla Nkosi and his triplet daughters were killed by smoke inhalation, but their mother Khonzi survived.
According to EMS spokesman Synock Matobako, fire safety in the home is vital to preventing such tragedies from happening.
“Bar heaters, electrical or gas-powered, need to be monitored at all times,” he said.
According to EMS, keeping heaters in a confined bedroom, close to objects that can catch fire easily, is dangerous as anything that touches the red-hot bars of the heater can become a fire hazard.
Matobako recommends that heaters are not left on overnight, and at no point should they be covered.
He also recommended that homes be equipped with fire detectors, which can alert sleeping residents when a fire started. - The Star