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medicnick83
Paramedic
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2006
- Messages
- 21,005
Okay, some of you know via the mercurial thread (What you doing this weekend) that I decided late afternoon that I was going to goto Stellenbosch to help (in whatever way) to fight the fires that were raging there.
Anyways, 5pm - we left Cape Town and headed out there, we got to my friends place at 6pm and we hooked up with another person and went out to Jonkershoek area.
The 4 of us went into a farm area and helped combat a few small fires (flare ups) and then another farm owner came to us to ask us what we were doing - long story short, he found out we were there to help (Volunteer) and he pointed out a fire on the mountain that was headed towards a valley which, if you know anything about fires, had it hit there, it would've gone up and headed closer and closer to the houses (on the farms area) - but anyways, we climbed the mountain and the 3 of us took the flames (from behind) and - yes, as cliche as it sounds "saved the day".
We came down and the 'incident commander' for the area couldn't say thank you enough to us, he said we did well (he watched this 3 'lights' (our head lamps) slowly kill the flames)
Coming down from the mountain - we were tired and he thanked us each personally for coming all the way from Cape Town to help and offered us KFC etc - he then got a radio call saying that there is a farm that is in danger of being burnt down and asked us if we were interested in going there - we agreed but we first had to stop to get refreshments.
We parked off at a Engen, filled our water bottles etc and then I went into the Engen to buy each of us Cokes and Chocolates - we then went off to tackle this fire that was on the mountains heading towards a farm I think is called "Mont (or Mount) Fleur"
I'm not going to type everything that happened there, but we got there at about 10pm and I fought the largest flames I've ever seen in my life - I (along with the 3 other guys) made the longest and biggest fire break I've ever seen and damn the man, we were so proud of ourselves. We got help from the people on the farm and we did our best to combat the fire heading towards the farm houses.
Long story short, at about 3:30am, we were done, we were exhausted - one of us got sick (he was ok after resting) and upon leaving, the land owner was so upset we were leaving - but we couldn't stay anymore.
This fire was amazing experience and I'm so happy I went, yes, it was only 5 of us (another friend arrived later on) but we did our best and when we left, the farm area was secure and such but I obviously can't speak for whatever happened afterwards as the fire was still going.
The one main thing I have to mention is the horrible politics between municipalities - That area of Stellies needed help and the departments involved didn't need any help - in short - it's a bloody joke!
While fighting the fire at Mont Fluer, there was a CTFES (Cape Town, Fire and Rescue) tanker - it was apparently sent to help Stellenbosch but when the fire moved into Vineyards area, the CTFES tanker was ordered not to engage in any activities. I lost it when I heard that on the radio and I told the guy in charge of the tanker (driver)
Look buddy, I've come all the way from Cape Town to help here - you've driven all the way with a full tank of water, wasted petrol, the least you could do, to help everyone and even show you care is empty that tanker on this here fire.
He looked at me, smiled and told the rest of his team (in afrikaans) "F*** control - let's help these guys"
Hearing that, seeing them help was sooooooooooooooooo awesome!
They did their bit and left.
Well, the night was long, it was tiring but I had an amazing experience - if you want me to be honest, I faced my first REAL hectic fire on Friday night - the fires I had before were p1ss compared to the fires in Stellenbosch.
Saturday night saw Cape Town have another hot day, with lighting and thunder happening at about 8-9ish - VWS was called to put out a fire in the Cecilia Plantation there by Constantia Nek and long story short, THAT was the first fire I had where I was actually scared - why you wonder?
The terrain was extremely steep, and we had to deal with falling pine trees, and logs and rocks rolling down the hill towards us - I personally had to dive outta the way of 1 burning log which came flying towards me and two others - my friend had a rather large rock just miss his leg, he only saw and heard it as it came flying by (remember, it was dark!)
Like we all say, each fire is different, we all learn different things - Friday I learnt alot and Saturday I learnt even more.
Sunday I spent the day on a wine farm with girlfriend and then drove up and down, up and down from CPT to Airport to Stellenbosch and again this morning.
VERY HECTIC WEEKEND!
I'm exhausted to say the least - I'm hoping there are no fires in CPT this week - I need to recover!
PS: I took a bunch of photos and will upload them to Flickr as soon as I get to a decent internet connection - but words can't explain how awesome the fires were - not from any pictures I took - I didn't take any photos from the Saturday fire
Anyways, 5pm - we left Cape Town and headed out there, we got to my friends place at 6pm and we hooked up with another person and went out to Jonkershoek area.
The 4 of us went into a farm area and helped combat a few small fires (flare ups) and then another farm owner came to us to ask us what we were doing - long story short, he found out we were there to help (Volunteer) and he pointed out a fire on the mountain that was headed towards a valley which, if you know anything about fires, had it hit there, it would've gone up and headed closer and closer to the houses (on the farms area) - but anyways, we climbed the mountain and the 3 of us took the flames (from behind) and - yes, as cliche as it sounds "saved the day".
We came down and the 'incident commander' for the area couldn't say thank you enough to us, he said we did well (he watched this 3 'lights' (our head lamps) slowly kill the flames)
Coming down from the mountain - we were tired and he thanked us each personally for coming all the way from Cape Town to help and offered us KFC etc - he then got a radio call saying that there is a farm that is in danger of being burnt down and asked us if we were interested in going there - we agreed but we first had to stop to get refreshments.
We parked off at a Engen, filled our water bottles etc and then I went into the Engen to buy each of us Cokes and Chocolates - we then went off to tackle this fire that was on the mountains heading towards a farm I think is called "Mont (or Mount) Fleur"
I'm not going to type everything that happened there, but we got there at about 10pm and I fought the largest flames I've ever seen in my life - I (along with the 3 other guys) made the longest and biggest fire break I've ever seen and damn the man, we were so proud of ourselves. We got help from the people on the farm and we did our best to combat the fire heading towards the farm houses.
Long story short, at about 3:30am, we were done, we were exhausted - one of us got sick (he was ok after resting) and upon leaving, the land owner was so upset we were leaving - but we couldn't stay anymore.
This fire was amazing experience and I'm so happy I went, yes, it was only 5 of us (another friend arrived later on) but we did our best and when we left, the farm area was secure and such but I obviously can't speak for whatever happened afterwards as the fire was still going.
The one main thing I have to mention is the horrible politics between municipalities - That area of Stellies needed help and the departments involved didn't need any help - in short - it's a bloody joke!
While fighting the fire at Mont Fluer, there was a CTFES (Cape Town, Fire and Rescue) tanker - it was apparently sent to help Stellenbosch but when the fire moved into Vineyards area, the CTFES tanker was ordered not to engage in any activities. I lost it when I heard that on the radio and I told the guy in charge of the tanker (driver)
Look buddy, I've come all the way from Cape Town to help here - you've driven all the way with a full tank of water, wasted petrol, the least you could do, to help everyone and even show you care is empty that tanker on this here fire.
He looked at me, smiled and told the rest of his team (in afrikaans) "F*** control - let's help these guys"
Hearing that, seeing them help was sooooooooooooooooo awesome!
They did their bit and left.
Well, the night was long, it was tiring but I had an amazing experience - if you want me to be honest, I faced my first REAL hectic fire on Friday night - the fires I had before were p1ss compared to the fires in Stellenbosch.
Saturday night saw Cape Town have another hot day, with lighting and thunder happening at about 8-9ish - VWS was called to put out a fire in the Cecilia Plantation there by Constantia Nek and long story short, THAT was the first fire I had where I was actually scared - why you wonder?
The terrain was extremely steep, and we had to deal with falling pine trees, and logs and rocks rolling down the hill towards us - I personally had to dive outta the way of 1 burning log which came flying towards me and two others - my friend had a rather large rock just miss his leg, he only saw and heard it as it came flying by (remember, it was dark!)
Like we all say, each fire is different, we all learn different things - Friday I learnt alot and Saturday I learnt even more.
Sunday I spent the day on a wine farm with girlfriend and then drove up and down, up and down from CPT to Airport to Stellenbosch and again this morning.
VERY HECTIC WEEKEND!
I'm exhausted to say the least - I'm hoping there are no fires in CPT this week - I need to recover!
PS: I took a bunch of photos and will upload them to Flickr as soon as I get to a decent internet connection - but words can't explain how awesome the fires were - not from any pictures I took - I didn't take any photos from the Saturday fire
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