Hi guys,
Like Gdiza, I'm also with VWS, and have been at Vergelegen fighting fires the last couple of days.
On Friday, we worked hard in a valley and managed to cut off a fire. We arrived ahead of the fire, after a chainsaw team cut a path through thick alien vegetation to the valley. It's pretty scary, watching flames approach you, while you desperately try to build a fire-break using your hand tools -slashers, which are like axes on a pole and rake-hoes, which are essentially a rake on a long pole. The slashers help cut the path and the rake-hoes clear the ground of alien vegetation. Our hard work paid off though, even though at the last we could hardly see for the dense smoke. Credit too, must go to the contracted chainsaw group, who laboured through the smoke to help us (they were really phenomenal).
I wasn't with the VWS on Sat, but by all accounts, they put in some hard work.
On Sunday, we pretty much worked the same valley trying to dead the fire out. This involved spraying tons and tons of water on the area, building fire breaks and using chainsaws to cut through to areas of the forest where spots were occuring. However, areas which were seemingly completely dead, suddenly came alive as the wind picked up. One area, in particular comes to mind: As described, on Friday we built the fire break and then deaded that area. On Sunday afternoon, that area suddenly flared up again.
We vacated the line on Sunday evening. As we left, and returned to the command post looking out of the area where we had been fighting, we saw a number of areas flaring up again. On Sunday night, as those of you who live in Cape Town and its surrounds will be aware, the wind was howling.
When we arrived this (Monday morning), the scene was completely different, the fire had covered the whole area we had been fighting, and much, much more. In fact about the only areas which were unaffected were the vineyards (since they don't burn easily). Sadly, our hard work from the previous days had been completely undone.
Our day today, has been one of protecting the vineyards, by attacking fires surrounding the vineyards. One of the vineyards we were protecting apparently yields R800 a bottle wines. Understandably, the loss of even one vine represents a significant loss of earnings for the estate (it would take at least seven years to get a vine to a close to similar state). This has involved hosing down areas with water and building fire breaks with rake-hoes.
Best of luck to the team going out tomorrow, and I hope that these fires come under control soon.
