Military vehicles worth millions of rands went up in flames following a blaze at a vehicle depot at Wallmannstal, north of Pretoria, South Africa, last week, after safety fires ‘went wrong’ happened to coincide with a military fire truck breaking down.
An internal investigation into the strange incident is being conducted at time of writing (19th September 2017), and the fire managed to break out despite repeated warnings that the grass surrounding the area – which had more than 2000 vehicles in – was far too long and genuinely posed a fire danger.
Back in 2015, 104 vehicles were destroyed following a fire caused by long grass being situated near a parked vehicle behind the Kgosi Mapuru II prison in Pretoria.
Brigadier General Mafi Mgobozi, a spokesperson for the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) confirmed that 83 vehicles, the majority of which were truckles, were damaged, while one was completely destroyed.
So far, it’s still not possible to determine the full extent of the damage, but this will be confirmed once the investigation has been completed.
However, it’s possible to work out rough estimates – given that an average market value of an old Samil truck works out at R80,000 (£4,500/$6000), the total damage could amount to around R6.7m (£372,962/$502814).
Worryingly, the vehicle park and a nearby shed was storing bombs, which were allegedly both very old and potentially highly unstable when exposed to extreme temperatures, meaning that the fire could have been a lot more disastrous than it already was.
Supposedly, the bombs have been kept under a canvas in the shed for years, but no-one’s gone to check that the bombs have been disarmed or even destroyed in that time frame.
Without any decent fire trucks at their disposal, the fire on the 13th September had spread at an alarmingly quick rate, to the point that help had to be called in from Hammanskraal. By the 14th September, the scene had began to smoulder again.
