No-one was injured in the devastating blaze which engulfed the studio at Highlands North in Johannesburg on Tuesday and sent clouds of billowing black smoke into the air.
The cause of the fire which erupted and plunged the production into further crisis is not known.
Production company Endemol South Africa and M-Net had no choice but to cancel the start of the show which has seen multiple production challenges the past few weeks before the cameras had even started rolling.
Due to stringent changes to South Africa's visa regulations, Endemol South Africa first had to dump the originally selected contestants from Ghana and start a frantic search for Ghana residents already living in South Africa to put in the show.
Then Endemol South Africa had to also jettison Rwanda and Sierra Leone as countries from the 9th season which was set to start on Sunday with a live launch show at 19:00, followed by highlight shows running on AfricaMagic Showcase (DStv 150) and two 24-hour DStv TV channels on channels 197 and 198 following the housemates.
After fire fighters battled the destructive blaze, M-Net and Endemol South Africa say that "due to a devastating fire at the Big Brother house, Big Brother Hotshots will no launch this Sunday as scheduled".
"The cause of the fire at this stage is unknown and investigations will commence as soon as it is safe to do so."
"At this stage M-Net and Endemol are urgently looking for an alternative Big Brother house in which to film the production, however as this production has highly technical infrastructure, alternative
camera
and edit requirements are not immediately available"."Every effort will be made to find a solution as quickly as possible to ensure that Africa's biggest reality TV show will continue".
Sasani Studios has become a hive of television activity over the last few years for South Africa's TV industry - the studio complex house a concentration of some of the most watched TV shows in South Africa that is being filmed there, ranging from weekdays soaps like Isidingo on SABC3 which ironically moved there after its former studio space was destroyed by a fire, to e.tv's Scandal! and Rhythm City; as well as other shows like SABC1's Gospel Gold, to e.tv's game show I Love South Africa.
It's not yet clear whether the fire has impacted on any of the other TV shows and soap in production on a technical level due to possible adjacent structural, equipment or set damage.
Sasani Studios' other shows besides Big Brother Africa would however have been impacted in losing production and recording time due to the shut down and evacuation of the complex due to today's fire, and it's not clear whether production would be able to resume on Wednesday on those shows and soaps sharing the same studio lot.
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