Emmanuel Rutabana smoked a cigarette in his white Toyota pick-up as he watched residents work on charred objects of what once composed his red-brick five bed-room home on Tuesday. A heap of family belongings not recovered from the early morning fire scattered around as children sat on the floor beside it. It was a sad day for the 47-year-old man, a resident of Kayonza town, when fire razed down the home he has lived in most of his life. Rutabana said he lost everything in the fire that engulfed his house when he had gone for his routine business in Kigali. “It’s really hard... the house, I don’t care much, it can be fixed, but the things inside, you know. My furniture, beddings, ornaments, among others, all this is gone,” he lamented By press time, the probable cause of the fire was speculated to have been a power gush that may have affected an appliance still plugged in when power was restored, he said. “We can’t figure out anything else that could have started the fire. This house has been here for over 10 years now. It is a tragedy for the family, luckily, all my seven children who were inside the house survived the blaze,” Rutabana said. The 11am inferno left Rutabana counting losses estimated at more than Rwf30 million worth of damage as well as destroyed part of his neighbour’s roof. “There was nobody around. My children were having lunch when the fire started,” he said, adding that the clothes he was wearing, his wallet, and his car are all he has now. “I don’t know what I am going to do,” he said. “All my personal possessions are gone.” He plans on moving into a nearby house and begin the process of rebuilding. Neighbours sigh Augustine Harerimana, a neighbour, said it was by sheer luck that other houses nearby were not affected. “We were all lucky. The houses here are very close to each other, so the fire would have easily spread to other houses. But residents’ immediate intervention with sand and water helped contain the fire to only one house,” he said. Police fire fighter vehicle arrived when the residents had almost controlled the fire. John Mugabo, the mayor of Kayonza, who was at the scene, urged the public to carry out electricity installations with expertise to avoid such incidents. “The cause of the fire is not known, but one can’t rule out short circuit. Poor installations or use of substandard cables normally cause fire,” he said.
