Arson Feared in Wildfires

[Lycanthrope]

Firefighters say there is "a strong probability" the fires ravaging the Helderberg are the work of arsonists.

"Incendiary devices" found by farmworkers near the Lourensford wine estate last week - where fire teams had fought blazes for several days - have left fire services believing there is a "strong probability" that those and more recent fires were started deliberately, says Sebastian Martin, a joint incident commander organising firefighting operations in the area.

Farmworkers had found several 125ml plastic bottles with small candles inside high up in the Lourensford Nature Conservation area, he said.

Martin said it appeared the plastic bottle would be placed on the ground, and the candle lit.

"By the time the candle melts the bottle (and then sets vegetation alight), the person would be long gone."

The Somerset West fire spread along the outskirts of four wine estates on Monday.

It had broken out near the Lourensford estate, but the way this front of the fire had "jumped" about five kilometres to the Vergelegen wine estate was "very strange", Martin said.

He said most of the firefighting resources - including about three water-bombing helicopters - would concentrate their efforts today on the Knorhoek wine estate, where thick plantations were hampering firefighters and vehicles from reaching the flames.

But rough terrain, continuing high temperatures and gusting winds may hamper firefighters' efforts today to contain the fire.

Firefighters in the Overstrand spent the night monitoring three fires, one of which destroyed a number of shacks in Hermanus.

Nearly 300 personnel tried to contain the Helderberg fire yesterday, which spread from the Lourensford estate to the Wedderwill estate in Somerset West, raging close to vineyards and sweeping through plantations, engulfing trees in its path in seconds.

One firefighter injured his back and another his knee, Petula Abrahams, a senior communications officer at the Cape Town Fire Command and Control Centre, said.

The fire, which stems from a blaze which broke out in Jonkershoek three weeks ago, created a pall of smoke that spread and hung above the city yesterday.

Late in the afternoon, the City of Cape Town's chief fire officer, Ian Schnetler, said the blaze was "quite large" and burning on the mountains above the Lourensford estate to the Wedderwill estate.

"We have crews all over the place. The smoke cover at the moment is so thick the helicopters can't be used (to fight the blaze)," he said.

Schnetler said about 300 people were battling the fire on the ground.

They included about 100 firefighters as well as farm workers and Working on Fire volunteers.

If weather conditions did not improve, fire teams would have their hands full again today and could spend the next few days fighting the blaze, Schnetler said.

Groups of firefighters were deployed yesterday in areas ranging from dirt roads to steep, mountainous inclines.

Despite wearing protective goggles, many had red and watering eyes.

In the area around Da Capo vineyards near Sir Lowry's Pass Village, the ground was burning and thick orange flames could be seen snaking up the trunks of trees on either side of the dirt roads.

Some trees snapped loudly as they burned.

In a section of the vineyards, thick flakes of ash and blackened leaves covered immature bunches of grapes.

Firefighters scrambled to prevent the flames, burning at times to within an arm's length of the vines, from reaching them.

Meanwhile, Riaan Jacobs, Overstrand's chief fire officer, said firefighters were protecting two houses as a blaze raged nearby in the Hemel-en-Aarde valley near Hermanus.

Another fire had gutted about 20 to 40 shacks in an informal settlement in Hermanus, Jacobs said. A third in Gansbaai was under control.

Source: News24

Sick ****s

 

[medicnick83]

This is horrible and I hope the buggers get caught.

 

[Mila]

Monkey see monkey do............

 

[Lycanthrope]

More on it:

Cape Town - Heavy smoke hung in the air across the Cape Peninsula on Monday, while parts of Somerset West turned into a sea of flames as fires continued to rage out of control.

"This is Satan, this fire," yelled a female firefighter as she tried to fight flames near the home of Gerhard Grobbelaar, of Wedderwill Olive Grove.

For Grobbelaar and other farm owners in the Sir Lowry's Pass Village area, the drama started at about 21:00 on Sunday, when the wind turned and the fire, which had been raging since last week in the Lourensford and Vergelegen area, started moving in over the Helderberg Mountains.

Grobbelaar stood on his fenced lawn watching the flames only metres away. "You look at all your work - all ruined. Ten years of my life are here, my friend," he said, with tears in his eyes. "Pardon me for crying. It is a sad day."

Marius Geldenhuys, manager of the Wedderwill estate, said one of the houses on the estate was partly damaged and another had minimal water damage.

Evacuations

Geldenhuys said the estate's residents had to be evacuated on Sunday evening.

On Vergelegen, residents also had to be evacuated on Sunday night.

Barry Humby, farm manager at Lourensford, said the fire came very close to the sawmill and two homes on Monday morning, but firefighters managed to keep the flames away.

By late on Monday night, the fire was still out of control, said the fire and rescue control centre.

Speedy Smit of the fire and rescue services said on Monday night about 400 people, including farmworkers and volunteers, had helped to fight fires. The flames were fanned by strong wind.

Also from News24. Picture available at the link.

This is horrible. Who the hell would be so screwed in their heads to start something like this?

 

[Mila]

Pyromaniacs maybe? Like in Aus.?

 

[medicnick83]

Guys must remember, that (IMO BTW) the fire department doesn't really put the fires out properly, from what I've seen.
They come, dump a ton of water on something and then move on.

The problem comes in where the fire is still going on via the roots and then down the line popup elsewhere and starts again, then the fire departments come back, dump more water and when its out, move on.

You see the picture forming here?

The Volunteers, like Working on Fire, and VWS, we're trained to pull roots up and such and sort those out, but fire departments aren't, it's not their job.
Having said that - you can't pull every root up, that's why when a fire is out, teams normally stay behind to do mop up and monitor but these root fires can go silently for days and days and days and even weeks before they come up elsewhere and start things over again.

I think this might have something to do with the latest fires.

Everyone just assumes it's arson, but if you know a little more than most (which I think I do) then yes, maybe it is arson, but also, maybe not.

This is... "IMO BTW"

 

[Alan]

This is horrible. Who the hell would be so screwed in their heads to start something like this?

Plenty of people.

 

[Blaze786]

Plenty of people.

So true, there are far more nutters in our midst than most poeple realise.

 

[Kim_Webchick]

It awful to hear that these were caused by arson and someones stupidity.