Cape has fire-engine red Xmas
2005-12-26 23:35
Cape Town - Many festive-season "lights" in the Western Cape were still smouldering on Monday night after a fire-engine
red Christmas weekend.
Firefighters from as far as Mpumalanga and the whole of the Western Cape sacrificed their Christmas weekend to put out huge fires along the Cape Peninsula.
A baby burnt to death late on Monday afternoon in one of the many fires that broke out in Khayelitsha.
At about 09:00 on Monday about 1 000 people were left homeless after 250 shacks in Site C were razed to the ground.
Nearly five hours later another nine shacks in Site A were in ruins. About 50 people were left homeless in this fire.
A third fire in Khayelitsha destroyed 100 more shacks late on Monday afternoon.
The cause of the fires has not yet been established, but can often be ascribed to negligence, says Cape disaster management spokesperson John Brown.
Many of the razed shacks belong to people who've gone to the Eastern Cape for the Christmas holidays.
Bulelwa Mfebe, 18, lost all her possessions in one of the fires.
Charred magazine pages blew against sheets of corrugated iron on Monday while she swept up the remnants of her home.
Hundreds of fire brigade members and volunteers helped to fight fires in the city and the surrounding areas over the weekend.
After a veld fire broke out at about 09:30 on Saturday morning, part of Table Mountain in the Camps Bay area was hidden behind a pall of brown smoke.
Brown says the fire spread "quite fast" and nine fire engines and four helicopters were at the scene about an hour later.
Camps Bay Drive, Geneva Drive and Table Mountain Street were closed to traffic for nearly 10 hours.
Two luxury homes in the Camps Bay area burnt down and flames damaged a further eight houses.
At 18:00 on Saturday another fire broke out between Otto du Plessis Drive and the West Coast road in the Big Bay area.
A strong south-easter reaching about 80km/h spread the blaze rapidly.
Brown said this fire was "basically under control" by Sunday morning, but it flared up again at about 11:00.
The flames jumped the West Coast road and spread towards the Melkbosstrand region.
The Ou Skip caravan park and Seapark home for the elderly were evacuated because of the smoke, he said.
The cause of these fires is not yet known, but Brown said these areas "hadn't had fires for a long time".
"Oil in the vegetation, dry material and strong winds spread the flames more rapidly."
After the fires were brought under control late on Sunday night, tired firefighters still had their hands full, monitoring the smouldering embers.
Brown told Die Burger on Monday that the fires "can't be fully extinguished immediately".
"Trunks and roots under the soil are like embers that can flare up again at any time.''
Other fires raging over the Christmas weekend and on Monday were in the Nynaga region, Samora Machel informal settlement in Philippi, District Six, the Joostenbergvlakte next to the N1, the Philadelphia region, Piketberg, Bredasdorp and the Stellenbosch region.