Child dies in wildfires
2005-09-26 14:00
Johannesburg - A six-year-old girl died while trapped in a house set ablaze by the wildfires sweeping the country.
Seeing a fire heading for her, Bonakele Ngema sought shelter in a house in Mntanenkosi reserve, KwaZulu-Natal, but she was trapped inside, badly burnt and died, said police spokesperson Captain Jabulani Mdletshe.
Nine houses burnt down at Mbazwana and extensive damage was caused to sugar cane and forest plantations in northern Zululand and the Mtubatuba-Dukuduku area in fires over the weekend, he said.
Prisoners had to be evacuated from Mbazwana Police Station to Emanguzi Police Station while policemen fought the forest-fire threatening the building with buckets of water. Three vehicles were burnt out.
Mdletshe said the fires were thought to have been started by people removing bees in the forest and severe lightning on Saturday morning. The fires were still blazing out of control on Monday.
Public-private firefighting organisation, Working on Fire (WOF), deployed two fire-fighting crews to Mbazwana on Monday.
WOF spokesperson Val Charlton estimated that 3000 hectares of plantation had been damaged.
In central Zululand, nine fires burning on Sunday night had since been brought under control, she said.
"Firefighters are mopping up - working through the area to ensure that there is no material left burning that could cause the fire to reignite," Charlton said.
"Cooler weather conditions are moving in and are expected to bring some relief to exhausted firefighters."
Fires raged
Fifteen fires raged in the Richard's Bay and St Lucia areas in KwaZulu-Natal on Sunday.
Firefighters battled 20 fires in the same area on Saturday, many caused by lightning strikes.
Apart from KwaZulu-Natal, fires were raging in Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the Free State.
Firefighters had also been placed on standby in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape on Monday amid fears that the blazes could spread.
"With the exception of the Free State, all the fires are in forested areas. There has been millions of rands worth of damage," she said.
Land owners and the general public have been asked to avoid lighting fires and to ensure open cooking fires were not left unattended at any time.
- SAPA