She said after the Usindiso Building fire, another building was engulfed in flames in Marshalltown.
The incident was caused by candles that were left unattended, she said. A building in Braamfontein also went up in flames during pipe system maintenance work by Egoli Gas in September.
A South African Revenue Service building at Frederick and Rissik Streets in Marshalltown also caught fire the same month.
Radebe-Kgiba said they couldn’t determine the cause of the SARS building fire due to water damage.
“With the fire that happened today, there are shacks inside the building, there are planks and people were on the balcony – and going in and out [from the building] is very difficult. There is a small passage for entrance and exits.”
Gwamanda’s spokesperson Mlimandeli Ndamase said the city has been identifying buildings and applying to the court for orders allowing it to evacuate the occupants based on safety and fire hazard rules.
Ndamase said the city has approached the courts to find alternative recourse “because the courts say we can’t evict people unless we find them alternative accommodation within a 10km radius”.
Ndamase said so far, the city has obtained six orders to evacuate occupants of unsafe buildings and move them to areas beyond the 10km radius.
“Each building has its own case number and as such the orders are building-specific. What it means is that this allows the city to start a process of evacuating some of these buildings in the interest of the safety of the inhabitants.”
Johannesburg city manager Floyd Brink said as police investigations unfold, the city’s forensic team was on the scene conducting its own investigation on the recent fire.
Brink said the fire had been detected through the monitoring systems the city has in place and they did not receive a call reporting the fire.
Firefighters were on the scene within 10 minutes, he said.
Commenting on the ownership of the building, Brink said: “This is definitely a hijacked building.”
He said the building had been the subject of investigation for some time with the person claiming to be the owner embarking on a court battle to try to have the occupants evicted.
Brink said this was not granted “because of a lack of evidence”.
“He was not able to prove that he is the actual owner of the building.”
However, the city and the Public Investment Corporation continued to try to implement long-term solutions to address the issue of hijacked buildings, he said.
Joburg CBD ‘full of fire hazards’
Emergency service staff say buildings do not comply with safety regulations
Image: Fani Mahuntsi/ Gallo Images
Most buildings in the Johannesburg CBD are fire hazards.
Johannesburg emergency management services (EMS) on Sunday said many buildings that have caught fire in the CBD in recent months were found to be non-compliant with regulations and firefighting teams battled to access some of them.
Emergency personnel found similar circumstances when they responded to a fire at a hijacked building on Commissioner Street on Sunday morning as they struggled to gain access to the building which had shacks inside.
Two people died and a woman accused of starting the fire following a domestic feud has since been arrested and charged with murder.
The office of mayor Kabelo Gwamanda on Sunday said it had obtained six orders to evacuate occupants of unsafe buildings since the deadly fire at Usindiso Building in August 2023 when 77 people lost their lives.
Gauteng police spokesperson Col Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi said a 30-year-old woman was arrested and is expected to appear in the Johannesburg magistrate’s court on a charge of murder on Monday.
EMS spokesperson Nana Radebe-Kgiba told Sowetan that most of the buildings that they have responded to in the recent past are not implementing safety regulations and most have informal settlements inside “in which they use combustible material and the fires easily spread to other floors”.
Image: COJ Public Safety
She said after the Usindiso Building fire, another building was engulfed in flames in Marshalltown.
The incident was caused by candles that were left unattended, she said. A building in Braamfontein also went up in flames during pipe system maintenance work by Egoli Gas in September.
A South African Revenue Service building at Frederick and Rissik Streets in Marshalltown also caught fire the same month.
Radebe-Kgiba said they couldn’t determine the cause of the SARS building fire due to water damage.
“With the fire that happened today, there are shacks inside the building, there are planks and people were on the balcony – and going in and out [from the building] is very difficult. There is a small passage for entrance and exits.”
Gwamanda’s spokesperson Mlimandeli Ndamase said the city has been identifying buildings and applying to the court for orders allowing it to evacuate the occupants based on safety and fire hazard rules.
Ndamase said the city has approached the courts to find alternative recourse “because the courts say we can’t evict people unless we find them alternative accommodation within a 10km radius”.
Ndamase said so far, the city has obtained six orders to evacuate occupants of unsafe buildings and move them to areas beyond the 10km radius.
“Each building has its own case number and as such the orders are building-specific. What it means is that this allows the city to start a process of evacuating some of these buildings in the interest of the safety of the inhabitants.”
Johannesburg city manager Floyd Brink said as police investigations unfold, the city’s forensic team was on the scene conducting its own investigation on the recent fire.
Brink said the fire had been detected through the monitoring systems the city has in place and they did not receive a call reporting the fire.
Firefighters were on the scene within 10 minutes, he said.
Commenting on the ownership of the building, Brink said: “This is definitely a hijacked building.”
He said the building had been the subject of investigation for some time with the person claiming to be the owner embarking on a court battle to try to have the occupants evicted.
Brink said this was not granted “because of a lack of evidence”.
“He was not able to prove that he is the actual owner of the building.”
However, the city and the Public Investment Corporation continued to try to implement long-term solutions to address the issue of hijacked buildings, he said.
Woman believed to be behind deadly Joburg CBD building fire to face murder charge
The DA’s spokesperson for public safety, Michael Sun, said the presence of unlawfully occupied buildings in the inner city posed a significant threat.
“National, provincial, and local governments lack a sustainable strategy to address these hazardous structures and the thousands of vulnerable, yet illegal, occupants within.
“The City possesses crucial information regarding unlawfully occupied condemned buildings and must now take precise actions to rectify the situation. An effective starting point would be engaging with building owners and stakeholders including government itself, to devise a strategy for relocating occupants, adopting a firm stance against building hijackers and repurposing the condemned structures,” Sun said.
He said the city should start the process of inspecting all the buildings in the CBD for fire and safety regulation compliance.
Sun called on the city to take urgent action against owners whose buildings do not comply.
– Additional reporting by TimesLive
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