Three shops gutted near Access Park
Centre still trading after midnight blaze
OWNERS and employees of the stores near Access Park Shopping Centre in Kenilworth were distraught after a fire tore through their businesses on Wednesday night.
The buildings housing HDC Home Department Store, CAB Foods and the AMG dealership were ravaged by the blaze.
Fire services spokesperson Jermaine Carelse said the City’s Fire and Rescue Service was alerted to smoke coming from the vicinity of the shopping complex and the fire awas brought under control before 5am on Thursday.
The extent of the blaze was extreme as the fire worked its way through the three stores, all the walls between the buildings succumbed to the heat, even the stainless steel rafters were bent.
Wynberg fire station’s crew was still at the site yesterday to attend to minor flare-ups, while a structural engineer and a fire safety inspector assessed the scene yesterday morning.
Though bystanders speculated that the blaze was sparked by load shedding, Carelse said the cause of the fire was still unknown.
AMG dealership and workshop spokesperson Shaun Rai said about 25 cars were affected by the fire, but luckily no car was entirely destroyed and some suffered only light damage.
“Our big concern was that we repair a number of upmarket branded cars and all of those cars would contain an element of diesel and petrol, so it was very important for us with a small team to physically push or drive as many cars out onto the forecourt as possible to avoid bigger damage and risk to customer cars,” he said.
Rai said the fire department was exceptional; they had several firefighting machines and at least 20 firefighters who worked through the night and assisted them to move the cars and ensure damage was mitigated as far as possible.
Employees were tearful yesterday morning as they carried goods out of the burnt stores. CAB Foods marketing manager Lauren de Wet said they were overwhelmed by the messages of support from people who shopped at the store in Kenilworth.
“We are devastated, this is one of our big stores. It’s six years old and we had planned to have a celebration this weekend and had geared marketing to get all our loyal customers in-store, but it can no longer happen. We have specials at our other stores but there are people who can’t get there. We are totally devastated by that,” De Wet said.
She said they also felt for the staff who called the store home and did not know when it would be up and running again.
CAB Foods managing director Elaine Lahoud asked customers to keep an eye on their social media platforms to find out where the interim location for the store would be while they fixed the damages.
Fairvest Limited retail property executive Desiree White sought to clarify that Access Park was not impacted by the fire and that the complex was up and trading, with no tenants having been impacted by the fire or damage to the centre.
“Fairvest Limited would like to clarify false information circulating regarding one of our assets. We are saddened by the news of an adjoining building that was impacted by a fire.
“Please note that Access Park was not impacted by the fire with zero damage to our building and we wish to inform all shoppers that trading hours remain normal,” she said.