SANDF spokesperson Brigadier-General Andries Mahapa said there is no way that an outside person could have entered the restricted area without being detected.
PRETORIA – The SANDF said on Monday that no foul play was suspected in the inferno that gutted parts of the Air Force Base Waterkloof in Pretoria at the weekend.
“Remember this is a military area. It is a restricted area. There is no way a person can come in here and do any foul play without being seen or detected. So, there is no foul play whatsoever,” SANDF spokesperson Brigadier-General Andries Mahapa told TV channel eNCA.
Mahapa said the cause of the fire was still under investigation.
“We can give an assurance to South Africans that everything is in good hands,” he said.
On Sunday night, the SANDF said the fire, which broke out at the bulk fuel depot within the air force base, had been extinguished.
The SANDF said the fire broke out at around 7pm and was contained within an hour by SA Air Force firefighting teams from Air Force Base Waterkloof and Air Force Base Swartkops in Valhalla, Pretoria.
“The cause of the fire, the magnitude of the damage and the cost of the damage to the bulk fuel depot will form part of an investigation that will interrogate all events and/or incidents that might have led to the fire breakout at the base,” the SANDF said on Sunday night.
Speaking to Newzroom Afrika, Mahapa said the initial assessment indicated that the fire started at a petrol pump.
“None of the tanks were affected, there was no explosion,” he said.
The fire at the Waterkloof base caused a social media frenzy after recent attacks at other national key points including the arson attack at Parliament in Cape Town and the “hammer attack” vandalism at the Constitutional Court in Gauteng.
