Cape Town – Members of the contingent of over 1000 Working on Fire (WoF) firefighters deployed in the Western Cape since the beginning of the year have contained the wildfires around the Simonstown/Ocean View area in Cape Town which started on January 11, the environmental affairs department said on Saturday.
During the operation, WoF had two Huey helicopters, a spotter plane, and about 50 firefighters from the Mamre and Newlands teams assisting Table Mountain National Park staff, the department said in a statement.
“The fire in Simonstown has now been contained. A small crew from Cape Point and Working on Fire will be brought in to monitor the area and conduct mop up operations to secure the areas burnt,” Philip Prins of Table Mountain National Park integrated fire management said in the statement.
On the Witzenberg fire which started on January 10, the department said close to 40 WoF firefighters were assisting CapeNature and Cape Town Disaster Management in ongoing efforts to contain the fire.
The fire in the Somerset West area had largely been contained and according to the Cape Peninsula Fire Protection Association, the fire in the Sneeuberg Mountain was also under control and ground teams would begin mop-up operations in the area. Since the start of the fire season on December 1, ground and aerial support had been instrumental in suppressing 57 fires and limited the areas burnt to 95 959.3 hectares throughout the Western Cape.
Firefighting aircraft had racked up 432.3 flying hours. For January 2017 alone, ground and aerial support were instrumental in suppressing 39 fires and limited the areas burnt to 26 492 hectares throughout the Western Cape.
Firefighting aircraft racked up 285.2 flying hours, the department said.