GEORGE NEWS - The Department of Environmental Affairs’ Working on Fire has been hard at work during the last few months as its firefighters were busy preparing for the 2018 Winter Fire Season.
Preparations for the 2018/19 Summer Fire Season continues as our firefighters will conduct presentations that will highlight the dangers of fires and how to reduce fire risks in communities, as well as demonstrate how to construct fire breaks and do fuel reduction which help eliminates fire spread in case of a fire.
Close to 300 firefighters remain on high alert during the winter period as the southern sector of the Western Cape experiences a year round fire season.
During the previous 2017/18 Summer Fire Season, more than a 1000 firefighters from WOF assisted partners and local fire authorities in suppressing 250 veld and forest fires limiting the areas burnt to just over 186 800 hectares.
Aerial support flew just over 1360 flying hours committed to saving the lives of citizens and protecting the environment. This fire season saw our pilots portray water bombing skills of an impeccable nature as they managed to contain a number of fires within the fire hour.
In comparison to the 2016/17 summer fire season, we have seen a decrease in the number of fires, which can be attributed to the extensive Fire Awareness programmes and workshops hosted by Working on Fire in conjunction with many fire fighting authorities and agencies, as well as volunteer organisations, carrying forth the FireSafe message to many school learners and educators.
As a result of the current drought experienced throughout the country we do expect a very difficult Winter Fire Season but we firmly believe that through our partnerships with Provincial Disaster Management Centres’, CapeNature, the Southern Cape Fire Protection Association, SANParks, the Cape Peninsula FPA, various private and public landowners and local municipalities, we will be able to respond quickly in rendering a highly skilled veldfire suppression service which is unparalleled anywhere in the country.
Working on Fire has also established a National Deployment team which can be dispatched to anywhere in the country to assist farmers and land owners with fires suppression efforts.
The Working on Fire programme is now in its 15th year of existence after having been established in 2003 and these firefighters are called out by conservation agencies, municipalities, landowners and fire authorities to attend to an average of 2 500 wildfires every year across the country.
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