Melanie Gosling,
Carlo Petersen and
Aly Verbaan
IT started in the high peaks over Muizenberg early on Sunday and by yesterday turned into a runaway wildfire across the breadth of the peninsula to Noordhoek and Hout Bay, destroying vast tracts of veld and gutting five houses, three bungalows and an upmarket hotel.
Firefighters from all over the metropole helped fight the blaze on the ground, while four helicopters waterbombed the flames that threatened property. They filled their buckets closest to wherever they were fighting the fire – including the ornamental dam on the grounds of the Silvermine Village retirement home.
By late yesterday the flames threatened to move towards Baviaanskloof in Hout Bay.
The houses and bungalows that were destroyed were all in the Silvermine Road vicinity in Noordhoek, while the five-star Tintswalo Atlantic Guest Lodge at the foot of Chapman’s Peak in Hout Bay was gutted.
A total of 30 Noordhoek homes were evacuated as well as the San Michelle old-age home and the Noordhoek Manor retirement village – built high on the mountain slopes next to Ou Kaapse Weg.
Ambulances ferried 52 frail-care residents to a retirement home in Fish Hoek.
Some residents were treated for smoke inhalation.
Ou Kaapse Weg, Boyes Drive and Chapman’s Peak were closed, leading to traffic congestion on Main Road.
An overturned truck on Hout Bay’s Main Road led to further congestion.
When Ou Kaapse Weg was reopened at about noon yesterday, motorists drove through a smouldering landscape, bare white sand dotted with blackened skeletons of trees and shrubs. Smoke was still rising in patches and there were small pockets of flames in bush that had not yet been consumed.
One of the signboards to the Silvermine Nature Reserve lay burnt at the entrance.
Table Mountain National Park senior section ranger Hilton Blumeris stood nearby and shook his head, saying: “All those animals, all the small ones that couldn’t get away.”
City Disaster Management spokeswoman Charlotte Powell said 20 of the evacuated houses were in Daniel Dale Estate in Noordhoek and 10 in De Goede Hoop Estate.
“There are three mass care centres in the area – the Dutch Reformed Church in Fish Hoek, the Dutch Reformed Campsite in Noordhoek and the Fish Hoek Community Hall,” Powell said.
The fire was fought using 28 firefighting vehicles, 16 support vehicles, four helicopters, two Working on Fire fixed-wing aircraft bombers, a spotter airplane and a helicopter from Table Mountain National Park.
Late yesterday an SA Air Force helicopter joined the firefighting team.
Powell said the fire had spread to Tokai plantations, but had not threatened any houses.
She said a small fire at Ocean View had been extinguished.
Even the NSRI were on alert in case the occupants of Tintswalo lodge had to be evacuated by sea.
Brad Geyser, NSRI’s Cape Town regional director, said the occupants of No 1 Chapman’s Peak Drive were evacuated as a precautionary measure.
“Tintswalo is gone. It (fire) started at one end and moved to the kitchen and a gas cylinder exploded, and that was it.”
Geyser believes yesterday’s fire started in the same way as the devastating fire of January 2000. “But it was stopped before it got out of control. In 2000 there were not enough choppers, only the air force, but now there are four Working on Fire choppers and that makes a big difference.”
Tintswalo Property Group chief executive Warwick Goosen estimated damage at about R30 million or more. Goosen said reconstruction of the lodge, which is on SANParks land, would take six to seven months “if we are lucky”.
Local residents in Noordhoek were also more experienced. Two of them, Gavin Fish and Athos Rushovich, went to the Dutch Reformed Church Hall early yesterday.
Using the Noordhoek Community Forum Facebook page and Twitter, the call for volunteers went out and Noordhoek residents arrived to help.
The local Friendly Store opened in the dark and people bought food, water and fruit juice to distribute to the firefighters and anyone who needed it.
“In 2000 there was a fire control centre here, so we just went there and because we were first, we kind of found ourselves co-ordinating everyone. It was amazing how everyone came to help,” Rusho-|vich said.
Ben Fish, Gavin’s son, walked into the centre with a chain saw. He had been cutting down trees around houses in the dark, helped by a visitor from Berlin, here to do the Cape Town Cycle Tour next weekend.
“The fire was about 50m away from one property so we cut down those big trees to make a barrier. We cut about 10 or 11 trees. If the fire gets |into the trees, it spreads to |the houses very quickly,” Ben Fish said.
Simon Struben, his face and clothes streaked with smoke, said he had worked with buckets and spades to keep the fire away from a neighbour’s house.
“The neighbour was away, so we spent half the night watering his roof and mine. But the fire burnt the PVC water pipes,” he said.
The NSRI has appealed to the public not to come to see the fire in Hout Bay as this leads to congestion and hampers emergency vehicles.