If it was not bad enough that South Africa is in the grip of one of the worst drought in a few decades, it is also summer in the south, and with summer comes what locals know as fire-season and all the dangers that come with it.
Every year around this time the Western Cape firefighters have their hands full dealing with fires that ravage the countryside. Over the past few days a series of fires has sprung up around the Peninsula, and thousands of kilometres of vegetation have been destroyed.
At least 20 homes have been destroyed in the past few days, the surrounding land and all life on it has been razed, and still the wildfires continue to blaze as others start in other areas. Devils Peak, Table Mountain, De Waal Drive, and Signal Hill are just some of the areas that have been affected.
While the raging fire on Devil’s Peak was finally put out on Sunday morning, there was no respite for the firefighting crews, many of them being volunteers, as on Monday a massive broke out on the mountain slopes above Scarborough, fuelled by strong winds, and spread to Ocean View, Misty Cliffs, and Kommetjie.
Two hundred firefighters with 25 vehicles were on scene fighting the blaze and five helicopters water-bombed the blaze for hours on end. The fires that raged through Ocean View, Misty Cliffs, and Kommetjie were contained on Tuesday, but firefighters are still on the scene to watch for flare-ups.
Firefighters need water to fight these fires, and although they do use a lot of seawater, especially to bomb the fires, they also use millions of litres of water to fight to preserve nature and homes, and this leaves us with even less water than before, which is very little at the moment thanks to the ongoing drought and too little rain during the past winter in this winter rainfall area.
It is therefore vital that we all save water wherever possible; reuse your bath water in the garden, do not leave taps running, take shorter showers, fix all leaking pipes and taps, and invest in a water cooler so that you always have chilled water to drink and do not first have to let the tap run cool before you can fill your glass to quench your thirst.
Get bottled water dispensers and mains fed water dispensers from Living-Water. Buy water coolers online and rent water coolers in London.
