A family of Riverside in Kitwe is horrified after witnessing mysterious fires in the house they have occupied for more than 20 years. According to the family, flames often burst in curtain rails, wardrobes, and mattresses and on other household goods. On Wednesday last week, the family was forced to call the fire department after fire, which started from the wardrobe, burnt the ceiling board.

The house, located on plot number 4601, Nile Road, Riverside, is an institutional house belonging to the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). It was occupied by Ian Mkandawire, who was the secretary general of ZCTU. He died in 2015, but his widow, Tamara, and her children still live there A check by the Sunday Mail at the house found household goods outside, some of them partially burnt. Chilembo Mkandawire, son of the late Mkandawire, said yesterday that the family has been experiencing strange fires in the house for the past one week.

Mr Mkandawire said three weeks ago, the family just saw flames leaping from the curtain rail in the lounge, burning the curtains. He said after putting out the fire, another flame ignited in the living room, this time on a cupboard. Mr Mkandawire said after some days, the strange fires stopped but that last week, they became aggressive, setting ablaze curtains in different rooms.

“See, this is where the fire started from but there are no electricity connections, it is just a curtain rail,” he said, pointing at a burnt window seal in the girls’ bedroom. Mr Mkandawire said the family was forced to remove all the curtains in the house and move all the furniture away from the walls. However, this did not help as the fire last week became aggressive, forcing the family to call the fire brigade.

He said last week, the fire first started from the master bedroom, in the bathroom, where the curtains were burnt, but that it was quickly put out. Mr Mkandawire said immediately it was quenched, it moved to the mattress in the same room and in the girls’ bedroom, where it partially burnt the mattress. Mr Mkandawire said from there, the fire spread to another bedroom, where a window seal was burnt, and finally in the boys’ bedroom, where the flames grew big and burnt the ceiling board.

Mr Mkandawire said this is the first time that the family is experiencing strange fires in the last 20 years they have occupied the house. “We have tried prayers before but immediately the men of God reach our gate on their way out, the fire starts,” he said.

Mr Mkandawire said the family is fearing for their lives and would want to be relocated. He said they are still living in an institution house because ZCTU never paid Mr Mkandawire his retirement package. Kitwe district chief fire officer Rabson Mbawa confirmed the fire incident on Nile Road, Riverside. Mr Mbawa said the fire brigade station received a report of a fire incident in Riverside and quickly rushed to the scene to quench it. He, however, described the fire incident as strange because the officers who went on the ground did not find any burnt sockets or electric cables.

“We checked the points where the flames of fire were reported to have started from but we did not find any electric cables. In the curtain rails, there are no electric cables,” he said. Mr Mbawa, however, said the officers managed to quench the fire. And ZCTU president Nkole Chishimba said in an interview yesterday that it is the first time that he is hearing of mysterious fires happening at the institutional house. “The late Mr Mkandawire stayed there for a long time but he never experienced such things,” he said.