Johannesburg&#8217;s heartbreak deepens as a heritage building fire claims 74 lives, exposing the urban decay in the CBD. Amid tales of despair and resilience, the tragedy raises urgent questions about illegal building occupations and housing challenges in the city.



Yet another tragedy has struck Johannesburg&#8217;s Central Business District (CBD), revealing the dire state of decay in the area. A fire that broke out in a designated heritage building has turned into a mass casualty event, leaving at least 74 people dead, numerous others injured, and countless individuals homeless.



The fire ignited during the early hours of the morning yesterday and swiftly consumed the lower floors, as reported by residents. In their desperate bid to escape, many people had to leap from the upper floors to avoid the flames. Police forensics personnel at the scene, speaking to FORBES AFRICA, confirmed that some victims had succumbed to impact trauma, while others perished due to burns or smoke inhalation.



One resident, who preferred to remain anonymous, described the harrowing experience: &#8220;It started around midnight, sounding like gunshots. We lived on the ground floor and felt the intense heat. When we fled the building, we saw flames raging above.&#8221;



Firefighters, police, and emergency services swiftly arrived at the scene as the day began, and a crowd of onlookers had gathered to witness yet another tragedy in the inner city, more deadly than the recent gas explosion on Lilian Ngoyi street, also in the CBD.



Robert Mulaudzi, spokesperson for Johannesburg Emergency Services, stated, &#8220;The [victims] were treated for smoke inhalation and various injuries. The building was an informal settlement, heightening the risk of being trapped.&#8221;



As the death toll climbed, from 20 to 45, then 53, and now to 74, anguished cries could be heard from those who had lost loved ones. Dozens of people gathered on nearby streets, beyond the police cordon, carrying clothing, blankets, and essential supplies they had managed to salvage before the fire consumed the building.



A resident from the building across the road recounted, &#8220;Some people were jumping. Everyone was frantically trying to call 10111, the fire brigade, and the police, but it took them about an hour to arrive.&#8221;



The building, located at 80 Albert Street in Marshalltown, was originally the headquarters of Johannesburg&#8217;s Non-European Affairs Department when constructed in 1954. After the apartheid era, it served as Usindiso Ministries&#8217; women&#8217;s shelter and clinic. Later, it became one of the many &#8216;hijacked&#8217; buildings in the inner city, housing some of the most marginalized residents in cramped and unserviced quarters. Deeds office records indicate that the building remains in the possession of the City of Johannesburg.



FORBES AFRICA also visited two buildings across the street from the fire, housing both locals and foreign nationals, with no access to running water or electricity. Most rooms, the size of individual corporate offices, were crowded with three-four occupants, often including children. The situation of the 80 Albert Street building was no different.



The problem of &#8216;hijacking,&#8217; or illegal occupation of buildings for residence, has long plagued Johannesburg&#8217;s CBD. In 2018, then Mayor Herman Mashaba&#8217;s spokesperson reported over 432 hijacked buildings in the city, a number that has likely grown since. Residents of 80 Albert Street, many of whom were foreign nationals, disclosed monthly payments between R1,000 ($53.5) and R2,000 ($107) for their occupancy.



Continual migration to Johannesburg in search of employment, coupled with a housing backlog exceeding 500,000 as of last year, forces many residents and migrants into alternative, often illegal, housing.



One resident interviewed by FORBES AFRICA expressed disbelief, learning that her friend Amanda, just 21 years old, had perished: &#8220;She was a child, and now she&#8217;s gone.&#8221;



While the nationalities of the residents remain largely unknown, many appeared to be of foreign origin, a point that quickly became a focal issue. Operation Dudula attempted to stage a demonstration near the site but was turned away by the police.



Mulaudzi stated: &#8220;The people living there, I don&#8217;t have all the details. Some might be South African citizens, and some might be foreign nationals, but this information is yet to be confirmed. It&#8217;s a mix of residents in that area.&#8221;



In conversations with local residents, some South African nationals alleged that poor safety conditions and the ensuing fire were a result of illegal activities. &#8220;They are selling drugs,&#8221; claimed the same resident who was a friend of the deceased Amanda. &#8220;It&#8217;s everywhere here.&#8221;



Several politicians were present, including Johannesburg Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda and the City&#8217;s MMC for public safety, Dr Mgcini Tshwaku. They spoke out against the incident, framing it as a nationalistic issue, and addressed the problem of building-hijackings within the CBD.



&#8220;As they remove the bodies, it&#8217;s evident that people were trapped. The bodies piled up because people on the first floor tried to escape, but the gate was locked. People were trapped. We need to deal with this issue – buildings are being hijacked,&#8221; Tshwaku emphasized. &#8220;At this time, the city doesn&#8217;t have alternative housing solutions.&#8221;



The death toll is anticipated to rise as emergency services continue their operations. This incident ranks among the deadliest building fires worldwide, highlighting the pressing issues faced in Johannesburg&#8217;s inner city.

31 August 2023 Joburg Fire Forbes (1 of 1)

Johannesburg’s Deadly CBD Blaze: A Heartbreaking Mass Casualty Event Claims 74 Lives

Don’t be fooled by his infectious smile and designer clothes; beneath his tough exterior is a layered story of depression and despair.
On a rainy autumn morning in Johannesburg in March, we meet Adrian Furstenburg in the small affluent suburb of Parkhurst.
Ironically, he is dressed in black – a symbol of grief – to recount the day when his design studio, including stock and equipment worth R70,000 ($5,800), burned and was razed to the ground.
“The damage was so painfully clear in the bright, winter morning light,” says Furstenburg.
To get to this story, it is important to start from the beginning.
Furstenburg was only four years old when he first said he wanted to become a fashion designer.
“I was at my granny’s house and we were watching a fashion show on television, and as we were watching, that is when I decided that this was what I wanted to do with my life,” says Furstenburg.
However, his father, a farmer, had, other plans – he wanted him to pursue law.
Somehow, Furstenburg found a way to persuade his father to allow him to enter a career not so distant from the fashion industry.
“It was the early 2000s and it was pretty cool to study graphic designing, so he said ‘that’s okay, I will pay for you to study graphic designing’,” he says.
In his last year at college, he specialized in textile design, which led to him crafting a career as a handbag designer.
“I think that is one of the wisest decisions that I have ever made, there are definitely no regrets,” says Furstenburg today.
As part of a college assignment, he was required to do a practical project.
“I weaved this beautiful piece of fabric and then I actually made a handbag. This project is where my passion for handbags started,” he says.
After he graduated, he started freelancing as a designer and stylist, set on his journey of one day being a fashion mogul selling swanky handbags.
But his worst day was lurking around the corner, ready to throw him into a state of melancholy.
It was June 6, 2012.
“The day isn’t etched into my memory. I recall it from a much deeper, more visceral part than that,” he says.
He and his business partner at the time, Nkululeko Msibi, of 2souls clothing, had recently set up a small studio just off Gandhi Square in central Johannesburg, where they produced every kind of clothing and accessory to keep their bank balances and ambitions afloat.
“We landed one of our biggest projects producing costumes for a major dance production. We spent hours planning, designing, sourcing, selecting, sewing, stitching. Their budget was strict and the schedule was even tighter with virtually no room for error,” says Furstenburg.
But a disaster that would discredit him and Msibi was about to blaze through their studio.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/03/01/can-burn-face-cant-burn-voice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: They Can Burn My Face, But They Can’t Burn My Voice</a>
Furstenburg was picking up materials from a supplier before heading to the studio that Wednesday morning when he received a frantic phone call from Msibi.
“Fire was really the only word I got from the conversation,” says Furstenburg.
He describes how surreal everything felt in the bright, winter morning light when he arrived at the studio.
“The thick smell of smoke hung throughout the building. Inside the studio, sooty black licks ran up the walls where the fire had devoured our machines, stock and the rails of costumes for the production,” says Furstenburg.
This was just three days before they had to deliver the costumes to their client. They were also not business savvy-enough at the time to have insurance.
“We sat sobbing on the ashy floor. The nausea swam in my stomach as the reality of the situation gained momentum in my head.”
“I called the client, trembling. The shouting started on the telephone and didn’t stop until they left our charcoal pile with a few pieces that had escaped the flames while stored in another studio,” Furstenburg recounts.
They were livid – understandably so.
“They were so outraged, because I was dealing with their dream as well. It was a costume production. They had a look of utter hatred and disgust on their faces,” he says.
They lost the clients.
“I spent two weeks in a blur of fear and guilt… Almost no one trusted us with their work and the landlord suspected that we were to blame for negligence,” says Furstenburg.
He went home, depressed for weeks, not knowing what his next move would be.
<blockquote>“I don’t have children but my business is my child. I have fought very hard for it. Seeing it die was the worst day of my life. I took about two weeks where I didn’t know if I was going to be able to do this anymore,” he says.</blockquote>
Fortunately, it was soon established that the fire was caused by old wiring. They salvaged what they could and Furstenburg decided to change his focus from production to styling &#8211; that is how he slowly managed to recover from what was his worst day.
He started from scratch, working on freelance projects making very little money.
“It was far from ideal and barely sustainable but somehow my resolve strengthened not to allow this incident to raze me permanently,” says Furstenburg.
The passion for designing handbags ignited within, in 2013, he equipped himself with business training at the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship.
When he completed the three-month training, the center placed an order with him for 70 small, original-design messenger bags to be given as gifts to guests at an event held during one of FORBES AFRICA cover stars Richard Branson’s visit to South Africa.
“It could be said that someone else spotted what I had to offer before I had known exactly, and acting perhaps more in response to a veiled instruction than personal confidence at the time, I started making bags,” he says.
“Amusingly, whatever I might have lacked in self-belief was effectively offset by a desire to wow anyone and everyone and so I almost simultaneously entered the Independent Handbag Designer Awards of that year [in New York],” says Furstenburg.
It took four years of applications before he was accepted in 2016 into the All About the Logo by Guess Handbags category. He was the first South African applicant accepted – and the first to win. This opened doors for him locally and internationally.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2018/05/07/from-football-to-fashion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: From Football To Fashion</a>
Furstenburg is currently working on a procurement deal with an international airline. If successful, it will be the golden game changer that takes his business to the goal of netting an annual profit of $1 million by 2019.
Six years after his worst day, Furstenburg is not without challenges. But he is continuously taking it one step at a time, ensuring that the fire he has for designing world-class handbags never burns out.
“I must admit that I get a little breathless reflecting on the trajectory that the business has followed in the last 15 months, not least because of the risks we’ve survived and the gratitude I feel to those who’ve guided and supported me,” he says.
<div id="attachment_36258" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36258" class="size-medium wp-image-36258" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Adrian-087-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Adrian-087-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Adrian-087-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Adrian-087-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Adrian-087-768x1151.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Adrian-087-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Adrian-087.jpg 1366w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Adrian Furstenburg. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>

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Johannesburg’s Deadly CBD Blaze: A Heartbreaking Mass Casualty Event Claims 74 Lives

Burned But Not Broken; The Tale Of Fiery fashion