It was late Tuesday night last week when the Samoa Fire and Emergency Services Authority (S.F.E.S.A.) responded to a fire incident at Vaimoso where a family lost their house to a fire.

Meanwhile, halfway through the firefighters' duty call at Vaimoso, they got another call from Falelatai, about an hour's distance from Apia about another fire incident so the firefighters were divided to respond to both incidents.

In an interview with the Samoa Observer, S.F.E.S.A Commissioner Tanuvasa Petone Mauga explained that owners of both houses were not at home but it was the neighbours who spotted the fire.

"It happened on Tuesday night towards Wednesday morning and halfway through the incident at Vaimoso we got another call from Falelatai about another fire incident," he explained.

"That's why we divided the team into two groups and the other responded to the Falelatai incident. The call we got from Falelatai was that the meter was on fire so we assume that it was due to electrical faults."

According to Tanuvasa, the challenge there was that they received the call from the neighbours for both incidents while the owners were away.

For the incident in Falelatai, there were quite a few residents who came and helped. The house was connected to a small garage at the back which fortunately, the neighbours destroyed the electrical connection between the house and the garage which saved the garage from being burnt too.

"If they didn't do that, both would've been destroyed but for the house, it was completely destroyed," Commissioner said.

"The distance between Apia and Falelatai is quite far which is about 45 minutes and by the time we got there, the whole house was in flames. It was just small parts of the fire that were left that the firefighters put out and made sure that the fire doesn't come back."

The house was owned by a man who is believed to be living by himself and left home to go to the shop.

"For the Vaimoso fire, there was no one at home and that's why it was hard to identify the cause of the fire. It was the neighbours who spotted the fire when it got worse and was obvious."

Investigations for both are continuing. Meanwhile, there was also another fire incident on Saturday at Vaitele, according to Tanuvasa. He stressed that while one fire incident is suspected to be caused by electrical faults, it all comes down to the families' carelessness.

"Most of the fire incidents end up being caused by the families' carelessness that's why we urge them to be careful in how they handle their electronic devices such as irons, multiplugs, stoves and so forth," he said.