Mysterious fire destroys community leader’s house

Damage amounting to more than half a milllion rands was caused when a house belonging to a local community leader was gutted by a mysterious fire.

Community leader Mr Justice Mphaphuli (32) of Tshikhudini outside Thohoyandou and his family are now homeless, after their eight-roomed house and all its contents were completely destroyed at the weekend.

Mphaphuli, the deputy secretary of the local civic association and a former chairperson of the Nandoni ANC branch, said he was at work at his brick-making factory at Nandoni when the incident took place. “I left early as I had some work to do at the factory on Sunday morning. I spoke to my sister, who was home, at around 11:00. After speaking to her for some minutes, I received a call informing me about the fire that had broken out in the house."

He said that he then rushed home and also summoned help from the local fire services. "On arrival at home, I found the whole house engulfed in flames and people struggling to douse the flames and pushing my two other cars outside. It was so fierce and intense that I decided not to risk my life to save my belongings,” he said.

Mphaphuli said that he did not want to speculate what could have caused the fire, but said he was surprised to hear that there had been loud bangs in the house which indicated that something was exploding in the house. “I cannot say anything now. We will await the police investigators to find out the source of the fire."

He mentioned that the damage was huge as they could not save anything. "The one thing that consoles us is that no one was hurt," he added.

Mphaphuli added that the house also served as his business office and that all his equipment, such as computers and printers, was destroyed.

Date:18 September 2015

By: Elmon Tshikhudo

Elmon Tshikhudo started off as a photographer. He developed an interest in writing and started submitting articles to local as well as national publications. He became part of the Limpopo Mirror family in 2005 and was a permanent part of the news team until 2019.

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