Shack Fires News Today

An estimated 2.6m Eastern Cape children live in a deadly environment shot through with live electrical cables, shack fires, burning candles and paraffin stoves during load-shedding and boiling kettles and pots going off in cramped, rickety spaces.Many suffer horrific burns and arrive at the Frere and Cecilia Makiwane hospitals’ paediatric surgery unit severely hurt, starving, confused and frightened

Tshwane's emergency services, working with other city departments and non-governmental organisations, are providing relief services for victims of fires in two informal settlements at the weekend.

Ten members of two Eastern Cape families died in separate incidents when their homes burned down at the weekend.

A family of three perished when their Matholesville shack caught fire in the early hours of Tuesday, Johannesburg emergency services said.

The shacks were destroyed in the early hours of Sunday morning. One person has died and several others were injured.

Between last November and this month, firefighters have battled over 530 blazes in informal settlements.