Kirinyaga teacher accidentally burns her house while trying to kill a snake

A primary school teacher from Kibingoti village in Ndhia Constituency, Kirinyaga County was left counting losses after she set her house on fire, while attempting to burn a snake that had entered the house.

Elizabeth Muthoni Gacheru, who is a widow, says she was washing clothes when she saw a snake slithering into her house and it got into the bedroom.

In a bid to flush snake out of the house, Ms Gacheru took a piece of cloth, set it on fire and threw it into the bedroom where the snake was hiding.

She then got out of the house for a few minutes waiting for the snake to slither out. She was, however shocked to see smoke billowing from the house and it is then that she realised the fire had spread to other rooms in the house.

“I decided to light fire so that the snake could run away but I was shocked to see the whole house on fire,” said the woman.

The fire gutted the roof of the house and destroyed property including clothing and electronics in the house estimated to be worth Ksh.1 million.

“Nothing was salvaged from the  house, despite efforts by firefighters. What we have now is a weak house,” said Nicholas Maina, a local resident who added that they will plan for a fund raising to help the widow.

It took the intervention of county government fire fighters to put out the inferno.