Working on Fire, the National Department of Environmental Affairs’ programme to help fight veld and forest fires, has been hard at work during the past 2 months as its fire fighters were busy fighting multiple fires across the country.
Since December 2015 in the Western Cape alone, just under 800 fire fighters provided fire suppression services to fire authorities in battling more than 70 “intense” veld fires throughout the province.
The latest fires in the Cape Peninsula (Red Hill/ Scarborough and De Waal Drive) and in the Overberg (Standford and Baardskeerdersbos) close to 200 fire fighters from Working on Fire are active in providing fire suppression services to local fire authorities. In addition, 8 helicopters and 4 fixed wing spotter planes and 4 fixed wing water bombers were active in these fires during the past few days.
In the Peninsula fires, fire fighters from Working on Fire had barely finished extinguishing a fire on De Waal Drive in Cape Town, when more resources had to be dispatched to the Red Hill/ Scarborough fire.
We experienced 99 fires throughout the country during December 2015 with a total loss of 39 000 ha and fifty-two teams (1300 fire fighters) were active on these fires. Our fire fighters continue to remain on high alert and a national deployment team of fire fighters are ready to be dispatched to the Western Cape and other hotspot areas throughout the country.
As a result of the current drought experienced throughout the country coupled with high temperatures we have had unusual fire activities in the Free State province which experienced 35 fires during December 2015 and a loss of 23 000 ha. (In December 2014 the Free State had no fires)
Many people in and around Cape Town probably won’t know that the national Department of Environmental Affairs’ Working on Fire programme is instrumental in fighting these fires and ultimately their ground teams who were active and often unseen in high up the mountains and their aerial support made out the biggest part of this week’s operations.
Working on Fire draws their firefighters from the poorest of the poor. They go through extensive training, and are characterized by their fitness, discipline and exceptional work ethic and bravery. Many of these fire fighters who spend days and nights on end fighting these fires come from the impoverished communities on the Cape Flats and Khayalitsha.
Thanks to their employment in the Working on Fire programme as an extension of the Expanded Public Works programme of government they have been given a work opportunity to earn a living and to put food on the table.
Working on Fire is a national veld and forest fire fighting resource under the auspices of the Department of Environmental Affairs and it has close to 5000 fire fighters based at 200 bases throughout the country. The programme provides veldfire suppression support to the provinces, Disaster Management Centres, Fire Protection Associations and landowners like South African National Parks and CapeNature.
