Man recalls brother’s cries for help while trapped in blaze

WHEN Gaben Petersen heard screams, he thought it was cats.

He later discovered it was his 46-year-old brother Jerome Moses, who was trapped inside a burning shack after 12am in Kensington yesterday, calling for help.

The cause of the blaze was believed to be a candle left unattended.

“I was woken up by something making a noise and because earlier in the evening there were cats in the yard, I decided to go and check.

“When I got outside the noise became clearer, and it was my brother screaming for help. The fire was already too high and he was still screaming.

“I yelled at him to go to the door while I kicked it.

‘‘When it was open I yelled at him to come out, because I was not going to be able to get in. There was no response,” Petersen said.

“My aunt said she phoned the fire brigade but they were taking too long. Some neighbours tried to dose the fire while I drove to the fire station to get help.

‘‘When I came back the Wendy (house) was gutted and my brother was dead. I just wish I heard the fire when it started; maybe I could have saved him,” he added.

City’s fire and rescue service spokesperson Theo Layne said they responded to an informal structural fire in Lugmag Avenue, Kensington, at 12.59am, where two wood and iron houses were destroyed.

He said the probable cause of the fire was a lit candle left unattended.

Two children, aged two and 18 months, died on Tuesday in a fire that destroyed their home in Colorado Park, Mitchells Plain.

Their father appeared in the Mitchells Plain Magistrate’s Court yesterday, and police were still searching for their mother, who ran away after the incident.