Making a break ...

You’ve heard the saying ‘fighting fire with fire’? Well, here we see it in action. As the last official month of autumn draws to a close, and winter moves in to finally decimate the last vestiges of green in the long wild grasses of the countryside, a new threat arises – the bushveld and forest fire. In an area so dependent on timber and forestry to keep its economy turning that is a very serious threat, and many locals will recount with horror the great fires of September 2008 in which some 34 local lives were lost along with countless hectares of blue gum and pine forest. Ironically, warnings merely hours before the event reported that only a few days of the dry weather conducive to veld fires remained. Rain had been forecast. In daytime temperatures of thirty six degrees local fire fighters were called to some 165 fires in the first nine days of the month. The controlled burning of fire breaks was banned – sadly a case of too little too late. The National Veld and Forest Fire Act mandates that landowners prepare and maintain firebreaks in areas where fires occur - such that they have a reasonable chance of preventing fires. I was pleased to see that a neighbouring farm was doing just that yesterday.

The obvious image to have captured would have been the colourful drama of the leaping orange flames, but I wanted to record the human effort and the smoky conditions in which they work to keep our countryside safe. As a firelighter with his gas flamed trace-lighter moved ahead, the team that followed were the driver of the mobile water tank and pump, and the hose handler extinguishing the well-controlled line of flames after it had done its job. In the rear was a final patrol ensuring that all embers had been extinguished. We should be safe this year.