A fire completely destroyed a family home an business in the village of Vaiee Safata on Friday afternoon.
An eyewitness who had filmed the whole incident on a Facebook live told Samoa Global News the fire quickly engulfed the first building, before spreading to the store nearby.
Daniel Vitaliano of Mulivai Safata said the fire looked to have just started up when he drove past the family’s property.
He kept his live video feed on for 8 minutes, which showed how the fire disintegrated the first wooden building within minutes.
As Daniel’s live video continued to film the tragedy, the fire could be seen spreading to the next building, which was the family store.
“They did call the fire department but with the distance from town, it would have been lucky if the fire department could get there on time,” he said.
“We could see that the fire was spreading too fast.”
Daniel said noone knew exactly how the fire had started.
Fire Commissioner Tanuvasa Petone Mauga said the Tuanaimato team responded first, assisted by a team from Apia.
Vaiee is a village is located on the central south coast of Upolu, more than 30km from Apia via the cross-island road and over 40km via the Aleisa Road.
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