On Thursday morning a fire broke out at the back of Checkers Carlton Centre in High Street.
On Thursday morning a fire broke out at the back of Checkers Carlton Centre in High Street.
The fire apparently started in the back alley where Mr Price stores empty boxes. Thando Mhlabisi, the store manager at Markham said: "We smelled some smoke coming in from the back of the store, and when I went to inspect, I saw a fire in the back alley so I called the police to let them know." He also said that as the fire intensified it caused the lights to go out so they closed the shop.
The assistant manager at Mr Price, Lisa Du Plessis, said: "The fire started at the back alley where we keep our boxes. There’s an electric wire in there so it might have exploded or somebody might have thrown a cigarette stub through the gate. We are just speculating at this stage."
Advanced Parking Solutions have their offices located in the centre so the manager, Thabo Dlabantu, soon became aware that something was wrong. "I was in the kitchen and felt smoke coming through. When I went to look through the window, I saw small flames coming from the back alley." Carlton Centre not only has businesses renting space but also houses five apartments. Dlabantu leases an apartment there and said: "We tried to extinguish the flames but we could not as there was no water in the building. Some of the fire extinguishers have expired and those that could work were not effective." When he could not contain the fire, Dlabantu rescued his one-year old baby, his dog, a computer and some files from his office and put them outside. "I kicked a door down of one of the rooms to use buckets [to put the fire out]but then there was no water in the whole building. Around this time every day there’s always no water in the building," he said.
Willie Erasmus, who works in Hill Street and does volunteer work with the Grahamstown firefighters, was one of the first people to arrive on the scene. "I could smell plastic burning and I went up the street to look and I saw smoke coming out Carlton Centre." Erasmus and Dlabantu tried to extinguish the flames but the "hose did not have a head so we went to Checkers to get spanners to open some of the valves as they were damaged and it was difficult to open them. The building’s fire equipment is not up to scratch," he said.
Amid all this, business was going on as usual at Checkers. "The store is not affected as such, it is only the back offices and we had to evacuate people [from the offices]," said Werner Fischer, a Checkers staff member.
Meanwhile, the fire department arrived promptly at the scene after being called by the police. Mr Price had smoke billowing out the front door while firefighters tried to put it out. "Everything is damaged here because of the smoke. No one will want to buy clothes that smell of smoke," said Du Plessis. Mhlabisi added that: "As much as there’s no fire in the store, all the stock is spoilt because of the smoke. We might have to have some sort of sale but then I will have to talk to my authorities first." The cause of the fire is not yet known as the fire department is still investigating.
