St Francis Bay residents mop up following devastating fire

There is a strange mood of calmness despite the millions of rands of destruction following raging the fire in St Francis Bay.

On Thursday, 11 houses were gutted when wind changed the direction of a veld fire.

By midday on Friday, home owners had cleared their homes.

Gerald Rugheirmer, 77, lost all his belongings but said he was grateful he had managed to save his sickly wife.

“I battled to get (my wife) in my car and to get her saved.”

Rugheirmer, who is originally from Germany, said he had been living in St Francis Bay for 20 years.

“This is the longest I have lived in a place, maybe I lived here for too long,” he said.

“Shelter is not really a problem for me but the problem is that I have lost everything.

“The only thing we had fortunately is our IDs because we keep them in the car. Even the clothes that I have on I have borrowed.”  

He was unable to save his cat, Gogga, as firefighters stopped him from going back into the house to search for it. Gogga was still missing by Friday afternoon.

Further down the road, residents managed to save a car in a neighbour's garage and a few items from the house. 

Neighbours could not move the car from the garage as the keys were with the homeowners in Norway.

Port Elizabeth couple Lara and Kevin McLoughlin, who have a holiday house in St Francis Bay, had more water damage than fire damage as neighbours and firemen had removed furniture from their home.

“We are the awkward people in this fire because we had half of house destroyed but the rest was fortunately saved by our neighbours,” Kevin said.

Another victim of the fire, Christo Van der Merwe, 21, who recently moved to Jeffreys Bay said something inside had told him to pack his best clothes before he left.

“I had been living here with my girlfriend’s family for a year and two weeks ago I moved to Jeffreys because of I got employment at Marina Wharf as a barman.”

“When I heard of the fires I immediately told my boss that I needed to come back home.”

Van der Merwe says by the time he got back the the whole house had been burnt.

“The fire department did try save the house but they ran out of water and the fire started again unfortunately,” he added. 

Members of the fire Sarah Bartman District fire department are still on the scene dousing any fires that may flare up.