Cape Town - The Cape Winelands District Municipality (CWDM) Fire Services Department said it had recorded an overwhelming number of veld fires this year, 351, including Tuesday night’s fire outside Ceres.
The municipality’s chief fire officer Wayne Josias said: “The CWDM Fire Services responded to 351 veld fires from January 1, 2022 until February 8, 2022.
“While the high figure is not completely out of the norm for our district, the duration of the fires, the size, intensity and location stretched our resources in respect of manpower and our budget,” Josias said:
Yesterday, the municipality’s fire services extinguished all active fire lines on Theron’s Pass on the R46, outside Ceres.
CWDM spokesperson Jo-Anne Otto said that demobilisation of personnel and resources was under way and aerial resources were being withdrawn from the area.
“Six ground crews remain on the ground supported by four firefighting vehicles with staff to continue to monitor and conduct mop-up operations on the 9km fire line. Should the conditions stay stable and free of flare-ups, two of the six teams will stand down and the remaining four will continue with operations throughout the night.”
Otto said the greatest achievement for the department and municipality during the intense and rapidly moving fire was the team’s efforts to prevent the fire from spreading to costly and necessary electrical supply lines and cellphone towers in the area.
“While the full extent of fire damage to grazing pastures has not yet been determined, no damage to orchards, infrastructure, implements or homes has been reported. We would like to extend our thanks to all contracted services and private individuals for their assistance,” Otto said.
Meanwhile, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environments' Working on Fire (WoF) programme in the Western Cape has welcomed 75 firefighters from the Free State, Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga. They will be stationed across the province to strengthen the ground crew capacity of firefighters as the fire season rages on.
WoF WC general manager Melany Duthie-Surtie said: “The Western Cape is still in the middle of the fire season and we need to be prepared in terms of resources and be able to respond to fires.
“February is expected to be the hottest month of the fire season. These firefighters are fully trained, strategically placed, and are ready to respond to any emergency.”
Duthie-Surtie said that since the beginning of the 2021/22 fire season there had been a considerable increase in the number of fires compared with the past two years.
“Over the past weekend, WoF dispatched more than 100 firefighters from nine teams, as well as 10 aerial resources to assist in fighting more than five fires in Grabouw only,” she said.