Summit on shack fires

2003-07-09 11:07

Cape Town - Non-governmental organisations, state departments and community groups in the Western Cape plan to hold a summit in August to formulate a fire prevention strategy to reduce the risk of fire in informal settlements on the Cape Peninsula.

This comes after a spate of township fires that have claimed the lives of six people and left hundreds homeless over the past few weeks.

The department of social services in the province will host the summit.

The Ukuvuka Operation Firestop campaign, a public-private partnership formed to reduce the risk of uncontrolled fires by clearing alien vegetation, on Wednesday welcomed the plans for the summit.

Ukuvuka project manager Stephen Lamb said the loss of life which resulted from uncontrolled fires could always be reduced with appropriate intervention.

He said it was critical that residents were taught about the measures that they could take to reduce the risk of fire.

This included exploring ways of protecting their own homes, helping their neighbours and working with city firefighters to stop runaway fires.

Ukuvuka campaign manager Sandra Fowkes said Ukuvuka had tried to pilot a project to encourage resident volunteer firefighters to provide a pro-active rapid response based within their informal settlements.

"Sadly, to date there has been a disappointing response for operational support for these volunteers," Fowkes said.

"But we will persevere with our efforts, and do as much as we can to be of assistance to shack dwellers and city firefighters equally."

Among those represented in the Ukuvuka Operation Firestop Campaign are the City of Cape Town, the national government through its Working for Water programme and the Department of Environmental Affairs, as well as Tourism SA and the SA National Parks, and the provincial government.

It receives sponsorship primarily from Santam, the Cape Argus, the World Wildlife Fund's Green Trust through Nedbank, and Total. It also receives support from the National Botanical Institute.

- SAPA