A fire of unknown origin has left three persons displaced after it destroyed their Montrose home in the wee hours of Saturday morning.
In wake of the fire, Karran Chetram, who lived with his daughter, Priya Chetram, and her husband, Ramraj Singh, in the two-storey Lot 178 Third Street, Montrose house, is now staying at the home of another daughter, Asha Ojha, in the village.
According to Ojha, she was contacted by her sister around 1 am and was told that the house was on fire. She said she immediately left her First Street home and went to see what was happening. She found that the entire upper flat was almost engulfed when she got there.
She later learned that her father and a visitor were playing games when they smelled something burning. They went to investigate the scent in the bottom flat of the house before they decided to check the top flat. The visitor and a neighbour, who went to the upper flat, opened a door and found that the fire was already out of control.
Acting Fire Chief Kalamadeen Edoo told this newspaper that the fire service was contacted at about 12.55 am and responded with three water tenders from the Central, Alberttown and Campbellville fire stations. He said that there was also a bucket brigade on hand but it was all to no avail as the fire spread very quickly.
Ojha said that her sister and father are devastated as they could not save much because of how extensively the fire had spread before they noticed it. “So they realize they could not have gotten anything. So they came back downstairs and immediately took out the two cars from the yard and they left the building. That was it. They didn’t have enough time to save anything. Just the cars and themselves,” the woman informed.
She said that they cannot account for how the fire started. Ojha explained that her family never had any electrical issues or fires at the home, where they have been living in since 2006.
“Upstairs is just bedrooms and it has beds and some rugs and stuff, so there wasn’t anything up there that was flammable really or anything stored that could give rise to a fire,” she said when she was asked whether there were flammable items stored in the upper flat. She also said that they didn’t have any faulty wiring. “At this point we really don’t know. It might okay to assume that [the fire was electrical], but I really don’t know,” she added.
When this newspaper visited the site at midday yesterday, a small flame was still burning on a section of the debris. A neighbour was seen throwing buckets of water to out the flame however it continued to burn. The Fire Chief told this newspaper that the fire service is still monitoring the site. He also said the flame did not pose a threat. “Those are just small pockets of fire that will blaze. It’s a normal thing whenever there is a fire, you will always get small pockets of fire popping up somewhere. It won’t burn beyond there,” Edoo stated before adding that a team will be returning to the site today to continue investigating the cause of the fire.
