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LEFT with only the grief of lo?sing those dear to them in a fire, one Lugmag Avenue family struggles to find a glimmer of hope among the ashes.

The 30 family members who live in and around the modest two-bedroom dwelling in Factreton have been forced to live in the only three rooms of the house that survived the blaze.

During the early morning hours of Sunday, 1 June, a fire broke out in one of the four shacks built in the property's back yard.

The flames that leapt from one shack to another and then to the main house left two dead and led to the destruction of most of the family's possessions.

Two men, Mzwandile Matya (47) and Benny Pietersen (65), who lived together in one of the shacks, died after the racing flames trapped them inside.

A third victim, Vusi Dick (50), who lived in the shack next to the two men, is still in the Tygerberg Hospital in a critical condition, explains his brother, "Scooter" Dick, who also lives on the property.

Although she says she is grateful for the donations the family received from residents, Janet Dick (78) says the family faces a bleak future.

"We have nothing left. Our kit?chen, lounge and all our furniture are gone. We are sad because officials come here and they take notes but you don?t really see them again," she says.

Scooter says the family was partially dependent on the social grants of R940 that each of the men received.

"Most of our IDs and Allpay cards were burned in the fire. Mzwandile and Benny died just before they were going to receive their payouts, so we don't really know what to do now," he says, slipping the charred remains of a number of IDs ? one of which is his own ? into a packet.

Currently only one person in the household is employed. Scooter says that on the night of the fire, he barely managed to save his girlfriend, Evelyn Damons (44), let alone any possessions.

"I woke up at about 01:30 and saw a light coming into the room. I was confused, because I remembered switching off the television before I went to sleep.

"I got up and looked through the window and saw flames in the shack opposite ours," he explains.

"I ran out to warn my mother, and had to pull my girlfriend and her daughter out.

"Then we had to crawl through the house so that we wouldn't be burned."

Lulama Matya (37) is still visibly traumatised by the events of that night.

She and her husband lived in one of the shacks at the back of the property. She claims that were it not for neighbours who responded to her desperate cries for help, she may well have died too.

"We are grateful to our neighbours. We wouldn?t have survived.

"There was no way of getting out through the front door and they had to break through the shack to lift us out," she says.

Family members say they remain puzzled as to what caused the fire.

"Everyone in the yard and in the house had electricity, so they couldn't have been using any candles or gas stoves," says Damons.

Raymond Julies, a member of the Kensington-Factreton Housing Committee, says a short circuit in the series of extension leads sour?cing current from the main house to the shacks cannot be excluded from the investigation.

The family is still in need of blankets, building materials, and school uniforms for the eight children in the house.

Those interested in donating to the family must please phone Eli?zabeth on 084 473 9218 or Raymond on 078 694 9460. apeters@peoplespost.co.za

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