A security guard on duty during the factory fire on Royston Road near Sobantu has described how a man trapped inside the burning building managed to escape through a window as emergency teams rushed to the scene. The fire broke out at a nappy and polystyrene manufacturing factory on Thursday evening, prompting a major combined emergency response. Firefighters from Msunduzi, uMgungundlovu, Howick, Ashburton and New Hanover, supported by private emergency services, worked to contain the blaze and prevent it from spreading to the surrounding industrial complex, which houses significant gas and combustible supplies.
Khangelani Mtonanane, a security guard on duty at the time, said he first noticed smoke before discovering the fire. “I saw the smoke and walked around, then I saw the fire,” he said. Mtonanane said a bystander alerted him that someone was trapped inside the building and that a crowbar was needed to gain access.
“I saw a client who told me there was a person inside, and they needed a crowbar to open. The man who was inside came out through the window. He had cuts on his hand because he broke the window to get out,” he said.
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He then warned workers at a nearby cake factory to evacuate. “I told the people who were working in the cake factory about the fire to get out. Whoever was here began breaking car windows and moved cars that were in the way,” said Mtonanane.
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