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Timoth Makohliso Midlands Reporter
A GWERU family is counting its losses after their eight roomed house was gutted by fire suspected to have been caused by an electrical fault. The house, Number 5 Lundi Road, Lundi Park, is less than a kilometre away from the city’s fire station.

Sources said the fire fighting team only arrived after more than an hour when the fire had engulfed the whole house. Property whose estimated value has been pegged at $5,000 was destroyed while one person was burnt and is admitted at Midlands Private Clinic. The incident happened on Wednesday at about 6AM.

Simbarashe Maponga, brother of the owner of the house, said he suspected the fire to have been caused by an electrical fault.

He said: “Agnes Nyambunga, a sister to my brother’s wife was seriously burnt. The fire is said to have started from Agnes’s bedroom and spread to the other rooms. I suspect it sparked from a plug and then got to the bed linen on a nearby bed. Agnes got burnt while attempting to put out the fire using a bucket. She is admitted at Midlands Private Clinic. Actually when all this happened I was not there since I reside in Mkoba. This is my brother’s house. Our father called and told me about the fire incident.”

Maponga said all the property in Agnes’s room was destroyed but swift action by neighbours and family members saved the property in the other rooms.He said the house was razed to the ground. Maponga expressed disappointment with the Gweru City Council Fire Fighting team which he alleged arrived more than an hour later without water.

“We are very disappointed with our Fire Brigade. They arrived here an hour late yet they are just around the corner. The most disappointing thing is they brought fire tenders which had no water. They had to use a nearby hydrant to fill the tank. If they had managed to arrive on time they could have saved some of the property,” he said.

Ironically, Gweru City Council’s Fire department received a donation of two fire tenders this week from Operation Florian, a Fire and Ambulance Charity organisation based in the United Kingdom. The City’s Chief Fire Officer, Emmanuel Musemwa, dismissed claims that they arrived late.

He said: “Members of the public need to understand the way we operate so that they don’t rush to make unsubstantiated claims. I know they are accusing us of arriving at the scene late but the truth is we went there two minutes after we received the report at 6AM.

“The house is just a distance of about 1.5 kilometres away from the fire station. The other thing is we need to educate members of the public on the carrying capacity of our fire engines.

“The fire engines ferry about 1,800 litres of water which we call first aid water and that is the water we arrived with at the scene. We had to refill the tank at a nearby fire hydrant and this is normal in our operations,” said Musemwa.

He urged members of the public to report fire incidents as soon as they occur to avoid loss of lives and property. The Chief Fire Officer said fire tenders cannot travel carrying huge volumes of water as that would affect their speed. Musemwa said the city was now in a better position to fight fire incidents after receiving two fire tenders from Operation Florian, a UK based charity organisation.

“We received two fire tenders from Operation Florian, a Fire and Ambulance Charity organisation based in the UK. This was a donation but they are not yet operational as we are still fine tuning the fire tenders,” he said.