Tomasi Uludai is grateful his family members are all safe after their three- bedroom concrete house at Kashmir in Lautoka was completely destroyed by fire yesterday.

The house is owned by the Tokatoka Vunirewa, of the Bukama Village in Yasawa.

There are about 10 people living with Mr Uludai, 59, in the house. He was away in town with his wife when the incident happened at around midday.

Their neighbor Salanieta Namena, 29, said she acted quickly and ran with buckets of water to help put out the fire.

After alerting other family members who were sleeping inside the rooms she helped an elderly woman to safety.

The heat was unbearable, and she couldn’t contain the fire which spread so quickly to their house.

“My daughter was the first thing that I ensures to save,” she said.

“We didn’t even care about our clothes and other stuff inside the house because the fire has quickly spread to our house.

“The electricity line attached from the first house breaks into two. The other half sparks the fire at our house.

“I had to call on other neighbors to help.”

The mother of one child lives with her daughter and other four relatives in the second house.

Mr Uludai said it was a devastating experience for them because they recently lost two family members.

“We are grateful to God that nobody lost their life,” he said.

National Fire Authority media liaison officer, Epineri Vula confirmed the incident and said they would soon release an incident report from Divisional Fire Officer West.

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