PICS: Faulty fire hydrant 'main problem' in disastrous Bluff house fire
A Bluff resident, whose home was gutted in a fire, says she was shocked to learn that the fire hydrant outside her property was not working.
Barbara Snyman and her husband were at work on Wednesday when they received a call from their neighbours who told them that their property had gone up in flames.
"You hear house fire and you imagine TV programmes that you watch and you think it will never be that bad but it's that bad. My house is totalled, the roof is gone. Everything is burnt."
Snyman says firefighters tried to connect their hose to the fire hydrant metres away from her house, but to their dismay it wasn't working.
"Every morning I would look outside and see the fire hydrant and think I am so lucky to have a fire hydrant right outside my yard, if anything ever happens, it's right there and then it didn't work.
"I don't know who you blame, who looks after the fire hydrants on the road? Is it the municipality or the Fire Department, because the fire hydrant was the main problem."
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eThekwini Fire's Acting Division Commander, Sfiso Mtshali says faulty fire hydrants are a common issue, but it's not up to the fire department to maintain them.
"We find that hydrants are not in working conditions because they haven't been used for a long time.
"They have sand in them, clogging them and rocks inside them because they are not properly maintained for some reason or the other, but that's not our function; that's not our responsibility. Our responsible is reporting those hydrants upon discovery that they are defective."
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