Monday was not a red or orange day on South Africa’s fire danger index. It was a moderate yellow when a wildfire ignited on Boyes Drive above Kalk Bay in Cape Town. It was the first wildfire of the week in a hot and dry summer where 7,000 veld fires have burned across the Western Cape.
“The increase in the number of wildfires has been off the charts this season,” says Jermaine Carelse, division commander for the Cape Town Fire and Rescue Service.
As the wind in Kalk Bay picked up on Monday afternoon, thick vegetation above Godfrey Road caught fire, throwing embers far afield and threatening houses below. Thozama “Breezo” Matabata, a fire officer for NCC Environmental Services, arrived at the fire line with her crew just before three o’clock.
“The smoke was thick and dark grey, almost black, and high, which means the fire was big and hot, too hot for the ground crew to get access,” she says.
“Three choppers came, dropping water to cool down the flames so that the ground crews could get to the fire. This was not easy because of the terrain and the wind. The fire was running upwards and the vegetation was thick. It was not easy or quick to contain but, at about six o’clock, it was contained.”
Matabata joined WOF in 2016 and in 2020 took a job with NCC Environmental Services, which provides firefighting resources to Table Mountain National Park. Now she is a fire officer monitoring the crew and helping to co-ordinate their efforts on the ground.
On Tuesday morning, the ashy mountain above Kalk Bay was still warm to the touch as resident Gail Daniels described her escape from the house on Godfrey Road in which she was born 58 years ago.
Gesturing to the burnt land around her, she says: “Within minutes the fire ran over the mountain. The smoke was so thick I couldn’t even see my hand and I had to run past flames holding a two-year-old.” While bolting for safety, she was singed, and she and the toddler had to be treated for smoke inhalation.
Daniels had no time to rescue her two timber wolf-malamute dogs, Silver and Summer, or take anything with her. “It was like a horror movie,” she says. But the speed and expertise of the firefighting agencies — who have worked unceasingly from the start of the fire season on December 1 — saved the dogs and her house. Only her neighbour’s deck was blackened by the fire.
“My brother Leroy is a retired fire services commander. He came back in full gear to fight the fire and protect our family home,” she says. Their house belonged to her father, a fisherman who refused to move from Kalk Bay when the Group Areas Act was passed. “My late dad knew the wind and the firefighters knew that the ‘old man’ could tell them which way the wind would go,” she says.
Table Mountain National Park fire manager, Justin Buchmann, says: “This is one of the busiest seasons ever recorded; 2014/15 was significant but there were greater intervals between the fires. The frequency this season has been intense and the fires have been back to back and that takes a toll on everybody.
• 25: People died in fires in informal settlements in Cape Town from 23 December 23 to 23 January 23.
• 1,641: Estimated informal structures destroyed in these fires.
Source: Jermaine Carelse, divisional commander for Cape Town City’s Fire and Rescue Service
— FIRE TOLL IN INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS
“At times we have had four large fires burning simultaneously, which stretched resources — people, vehicles and helicopters flying for hours — almost to breaking point. That’s been the difference with this season. We haven’t had that breather in between when you can sort out equipment and staff can rest.”
“Major fires are becoming more frequent,” says WOF MD, Trevor Abrahams, defining “major” as multi-day fires that threaten assets and burn large areas. Major fires in the Western Cape this summer included Simon’s Town, Kluitjieskraal/Brandvlei, the Cape winelands and Hangklip/Buffelsjags Bay, says Abrahams. In Kluitjieskraal and Hangklip they destroyed properties and left thousands of hectares charred.
Three emergency “code reds” have been proclaimed: in Simon’s Town on December 21; on Christmas day for a West Coast fire; and in Pringle Bay on January 30, when residents had to evacuate.
Wouter Kriel, spokesperson for the Western Cape local government MEC, Anton Bredell, says fighting the fires has already cost the province more than the R19m budgeted for the season. Bredell has called on the National Disaster Management Centre to declare the province’s wildfires a disaster.
The Cape’s wildfires also catch the international spotlight because they are “very close to the urban edge” and popular tourist areas. On January 16, a fire raged up Table Mountain under the aerial cableway.
During the multi-day fires, such as the one that threatened Simon’s Town, volunteers and residents worked 24/7 to support firefighting crews.
Andrew Rogers, a trained paramedic, fire services consultant and chair of the Simon’s Town Business Association, leapt into action when the inferno erupted on their doorstep. “We set up a control point at the town hall, with the involvement of the councillor and SAPS,” he says.
Residents, local businesses and corporates streamed in with food and drinks to “refuel the firefighters”, says his wife Jenny, chair of the community policing forum. “At one stage the road in front of the town hall was blocked and people would chuck donations out of the window [to keep traffic moving].”
Excess perishables were donated to homeless shelters and nonperishable food was stored for future use.
The SPCA checked for stranded and injured animals and animal-loving volunteers collected and fostered pets for the duration. Community groups and the neighbourhood watch posted updates on WhatsApp so everyone knew what was going on.
“I have worked in Johannesburg, Pietermaritzburg, Margate and South Sudan and never, in 33 years, have I seen a response like this,” says Rogers.
People have been responsible for most of the wildfires this season, says WOF’s Abrahams. “Humans, by and large, are the major [cause] of fires, mostly through negligent and accidental ignition. Cigarette butts and open fires are a problem.”
Increasingly, people displaced from urban areas have moved into Table Mountain National Park and are living on its slopes, where they use fires to stay warm and cook, says Buchmann. “They have few places to go and they are not sedentary. Managing the fire risk is a challenge.
“We have noticed, and said publicly, that larger fires have been started maliciously, particularly in the Southern Peninsula. All fires in the areas of Kalk Bay and Redhill are under investigation.”
The power of partnerships has helped to control the fires, he says. “No single agency has all the resources to tackle wildfires on their own. Without co-ordination and partnerships we would not have had the success we have seen this season. Our co-ordinated fire response has improved significantly.”
The rapid deployment of aerial resources — helicopters, fixed wing bombers and spotter planes — has also been key to containing fires. “They cool them down and boots on the ground beat them out and mop up,” Abrahams says of the world-class crews in South Africa. They have joined international firefighting efforts — as in Canada last year where an area “larger than the Western Cape and half of the Free State burned”. WOF sent 860 firefighters to help.
Joint operations are also vital in South Africa where “the threat far outstrips local capacity and we have to work in collaboration”.
Climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme weather conditions and the intensity of fires, according to research organisation, World Weather Attribution (WWA).
WWA scientists found that “climate change more than doubled the likelihood of extreme fire conditions in Eastern Canada” last May and June when wildfires scorched more than 13-million hectares.
Abrahams says: “If this pattern of [a typically dry] El Niño continues, we are certainly going to see wildfires on the Garden Route next year.”
He urges individuals to take more responsibility to protect their properties — to clear vegetation around their homes, especially invasive aliens that fuel the flames, and make sure they maintain firebreaks — particularly if they live on the urban edge.
Soaring temperatures — up to 41°C in the Cape winelands this season — are likely to intensify in years to come, setting the scene for more intense wildfires.
Abrahams says: “The story that should emerge is that this is the future.”
The story that should emerge is that this is the future
— WOF MD, Trevor Abrahams
ALL PROVINCES FACE FIRE RISK
The frequent and intense wildfires in the Western Cape this summer are a warning to other provinces to prepare for their own fire seasons, mostly over the winter months when they are typically dry.
WOF’s Abrahams says: “Wildfires are more frequent and spreading. They are moving more into our breadbasket in the Free State. The North West has been burning and had the worst fires last year in eight years, burning 1.2-million hectares. They lost 400,000ha of grazing land.”
WORLD-CLASS FIREFIGHTERS
WOF is an exceptional job creation programme under the department of forestry, fisheries & the environment that celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2023. The award-winning government-funded expanded public works programme trains unemployed young people to fight wildland fires and they have earned a world-class reputation for their professionalism. WOF now has more than 5,300 skilled wildland firefighters, a third of whom women. They work in mountainous terrain and typically outnumber other boots on the ground, with 350 managers and 230 bases in all nine provinces.
“There is no comparable service in the world,” says Abrahams of their numbers, training and job creation opportunities.
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