Cape Town – More than 150 ground crews continued battling the wildfire that broke in the Franschhoek Mountains on Monday.
Ground crew members from the Cape Winelands District Municipality (CWDM), Cape Nature and Working on Fire (WoF) were deployed to contain the blaze.
Teams remained on high alert for possible flare-ups due to expected high temperatures and windy conditions. The fire started in the Mooiwater area on Monday afternoon.
The CWDM said the municipality's fire services team's main efforts were focused on preventing the fire from spreading onto agricultural grounds.
“The jagged and mostly inaccessible fire line is 9.5km in length, situated 3km inside the borders of the Cape Winelands District.
"The Franschhoek Pass has been opened for the time being. However, there is some concern that the wind may pick up or change direction, which in turn will affect the direction and intensity of the fire line.
"At first light tomorrow the incident commander will fly reconnaissance to establish the way forward."
The Cape Winelands has suffered damage from fires, with at least 87 hectares of 30-year-old fynbos destroyed and a large portion of forest.
Fires were reported in the R44 near Remhoogte, outside Stellenbosch, on Sunday afternoon and in the Silverboomkloof nature reserve in Somerset West on Monday.
The CWDM were required to attend to a flare-up of the Remhoogte fire, which has since been extinguished.
WoF spokesperson Lauren Howard-Clayton said they had deployed one spotter plane and two Huey Helicopters, as well as 50 firefighters to tackle the Franschhoek blaze.
Howard-Clayton said about 90 firefighters had relieved the day-shift crew yesterday.
Stellenbosch Municipality spokesperson Stuart Grobbelaar said their municipality had dispatched a senior officer to Franschhoek to assist.
“Crews from Stellenbosch will be dispatched and directed at their command if needed. For now, we are covering fire incidents across the rest of the municipal area, while Cape Winelands are busy in the Franschhoek mountains,” he said.
The CWDM thanked the community of Franschhoek for their overwhelming response of donations for the fire teams.
Contact Wendy Tawse of CapeNature at 082 442 8005 to find out what the needs of the firefighters are and where goods can be delivered to.