Fire Management and Burning

[Lisbeth]

[Lisbeth]

Some Cape Town residents who live in a small informal settlement on the outskirts of the City Bowl have lost their belongings to the blaze.

What they call "informal settlements" are they unlawful? If yes, it's a bit of a dangerous place to leave them. Open fires are used both for heating and for cooking.

[Lisbeth]

Professor Sue Harrison, the university’s deputy vice-chancellor for research, described the loss of the Jagger Reading Room as “our major tragedy”, adding that some of the special collections have been lost. There is yet to be clarity on the archival losses, with some academics urging optimism due to fireproofing measures installed under the leadership of former vice-chancellor Dr Max Price.

UCT spokesperson Elijah Moholola told Daily Maverick there was as yet no official confirmation of all the buildings affected, but he confirmed that the list includes the Smuts Hall residence, Fuller Hall residence and the HW Pearson Building.



https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article ... 0of%20Hell

[Richprins]

[Klipspringer]

There may be also a bigger ecological picture

https://theconversation.com/why-the-fir ... ing-159390?

[Lisbeth]

A disaster is mostly needed to make "who is concerned" wake up and start to administer things adequately

[Richprins]

Why the fire on Cape Town’s iconic Table Mountain was particularly devastating
April 20, 2021 7.40pm SAST
Authors

Alanna Rebelo

Postdoctoral researcher, Stellenbosch University
Karen Joan Esler

Professor of Conservation Ecology and Head of the Department of Conservation Ecology & Entomology at Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch University



The Conversation is funded by the National Research Foundation, eight universities, including the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Rhodes University, Stellenbosch University and the Universities of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Pretoria, and South Africa. It is hosted by the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Western Cape, the African Population and Health Research Centre and the Nigerian Academy of Science. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a Strategic Partner. more

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The devastating fire that ran its course across the side of Table Mountain in Cape Town this week has put the spotlight back on the management of an iconic range that’s home to some of the most biodiverse vegetation in the world. And what should – and could – have been done to reduce the risk of a catastrophe that destroyed priceless cultural heritage.

Table Mountain National Park is clothed in fynbos – a distinctive type of vegetation found only in South Africa – and is surrounded by the city of Cape Town.

Fynbos is a highly flammable shrubland, which has evolved over millennia to become dependent on fire for survival. It burns. Science tells us that we can expect most fynbos to burn on average every 12 to 15 years in natural conditions.

Therefore managing fynbos means managing fires.
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Fire hazard is influenced by three factors: the weather, an ignition source and fuel loads.

The weather can affect fires by increasing spread through high wind speeds or resulting in dry vegetation after a period of warm weather. Ignition sources may be a result of lightning or arson.

Both weather and ignition sources are hard to control and prevent, and yet often receive the most media attention. But the one factor that is possible to manage, is fuel loads. Fuel loads in fynbos can be kept down through ecological burns and keeping the mountain clear of invasive alien trees.

The recent out-of-control wildfire on Table Mountain may be linked to several key issues: fire suppression, alien trees, constrained budgets and unsupportive policies, together creating a wicked problem. Climate change may also have played a role in the high temperatures and fierce winds around the time of the fire, though attribution studies will need to confirm this.
Fire suppression

Recent research has shown that urban expansion of Cape Town has created anthropogenic fire shadows which are changing the fire regime, often causing a decline in fire activity. For example, the fires that used to sweep the slopes of Newlands and Kirstenbosch from the flats below have been blocked by the suburbs of Newlands and Rondebosch, meaning that the fynbos on these slopes has not burnt in decades.

Scientists are calling this process a “hidden collapse”, that desperately requires management intervention. They also predicted two years ago that this would lead to extreme fires in ecosystems globally where there was no ecological restoration and where fuels were allowed to accumulate.

Further evidence of a decline in fire activity in Table Mountain Natonal Park is presented in a study on indigenous forests which showed that they had been expanding on Table Mountain due to fire suppression policies.
Invasion of alien trees

Invasion of alien trees also contributes to increased fuel loads, and therefore more dangerous fires. Fynbos is made up mainly of shrubs and therefore when alien trees invade or are planted in fynbos, they tower several meters above fynbos, carrying considerably more fuel. A change from fynbos to pines and gum trees can increase fuel loads from 4 to 20 tonnes per hectare.

One study found that the 2017 Knysna wildfire had a significantly higher severity in plantations of invasive alien trees and fynbos invaded by these trees, compared to areas with just fynbos.

Unfortunately, invasive alien plant species are proliferating faster than authorities can remove or manage them. This is also despite the efforts of Working for Water Teams working in the park, as well as over 20 volunteer groups working hard to clear invasive alien plants on the Cape Peninsula and beyond.

In an article in 2019, scientists warned of the areas of highest risk at the urban-fynbos fringe, and gave clear steps that could be taken to mitigate this risk. But these issues have been identified as early as 1995.

Could Cape Town have been better prepared to deal with this disaster?
Why is this a wicked problem?

Although we have the ecological knowledge to undertake prescribed burns and alien clearing, unsupportive policies, constrained budgets and a complex social setting make implementation challenging.

In the 1970s and 1980s, regular prescribed burns were practised in some parts of the park with the dual goals of rejuvenating the fynbos, and reducing fuel loads (and hence risk). However this was halted at the end of the 1980s, and fire management shifted to fire suppression to protect plantations and residential developments.

The current National Veld and Forest Fire Act 101 of 1998 does not adequately cater for prescribed burning, as it only allows burning for the purposes of preparing firebreaks. This makes it extremely difficult to obtain permission to conduct fires that would maintain the fynbos, assist with the control of alien plants, and reduce fuel loads.

Another issue is the social resistance to prescribed ecological burns in Cape Town. The public have raised concerns around lack of communication, while the authorities past communications around prescribed and alien clearing has resulted in public efforts to block the planned management actions. This has resulted in a lack of trust between authorities and residents.

These challenges result in a management stalemate.
Recommendations

What should the priorities be in the short-term? Will funds for basic needs, such as recovering buildings and capacity, compete with disaster risk reduction needs, such as ecological restoration and clearing invasive alien trees?

Alien plant management needs to compete with all other budgetary pressures, which perpetuates a complex, wicked problem.

What can be done better going forward?

Firstly, the policy framework needs to be addressed. Although prescribed burns are dangerous and inconvenient, out-of-control wildfires are disastrous and could threaten many people’s lives.

Secondly, citizens of Cape Town need to be more supportive of prescribed ecological burns and alien clearing. The relationship with managing authorities also needs to be restored and trust rebuilt.

Thirdly, Cape Town needs to improve the management of its natural and cultural heritage. This should include both prescribed ecological burns, and keeping the mountain clear of alien trees.

Given the huge interest from the public in alien tree clearing, apparent from the many active volunteer hacking groups, there is a need to integrate efforts by the South African National Parks, the City of Cape Town, and landowners (such as the University of Cape Town) with those of the public to develop a more strategic, standardised approach to clearing invasive alien trees.

[Richprins]

A good article!

[Lisbeth]

Could Cape Town have been better prepared to deal with this disaster?

Modernising the fire brigade would help a lot

[Lisbeth]

Our Burning Mountain: Blaze lays siege to Cape Town for third consecutive day

By Tiara Walters• 20 April 2021


A raging fire burns above Vredehoek on 19 April 2021 in Cape Town. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)

Furious southeaster bears down on the city as firefighting efforts continue overnight.

Just as it seemed the summer and autumn of 2020/21 could not exact a tougher toll on the locked-down city of Cape Town, the mother of blazes charred at least 400 hectares of natural world heritage on Table Mountain, gutted cultural treasures and sent hundreds fleeing.

During the first two days of dramatic weather in the wake of the runaway Rhodes Memorial fire – and a second southeaster-fanned fire – face-masked students evacuated the University of Cape Town (UCT) and City Bowl residents escaped Vredehoek’s populated perimeter.

On the mountain’s eastern slopes, the Rhodes Memorial restaurant – a cherished haunt among Capetonians – was forever claimed by flames. At UCT’s upper campus a little further down the drag, heritage buildings were destroyed, including the Reading Room in the nearly 200-year-old Jagger Library and potentially irreplaceable African literary gems. On the other side of the M3 motorway, fire consigned the 1796 Mostert’s Mill as we know it to history – although Friends of Mostert’s Mill has vowed to rebuild it.

The first blaze, reportedly started by an unattended vagrant fire, was sparked in the game camp area between UCT and Hospital Bend above Philip Kgosana Drive at about 8.45am on Sunday.

“Eight structures had reportedly been damaged and/or destroyed in the fire.” These included four buildings on the UCT campus, the Western Cape government noted.

Soon, as the fire raced over the lower slopes towards the memorial, a cloud of smoke, near-apocalyptic in immensity, loomed over the City Bowl. Whipping up its own winds, it could be seen across the metropolis. Water-bombing helicopters floated like toy craft against the might of that colossus, making it nigh impossible to get close enough to douse the inferno.

As the day wore on, the mercury climbed deep into the thirties.

More than 200 firefighters would be called to the frontlines while the notorious Cape Doctor – a gale-force southeaster – dished out its own dose of bad medicine, fuelling the out-of-control flames. By Monday evening, five firefighters – the brave foot soldiers of the mountain’s trenches – had been injured and taken to hospital, according to Western Cape Premier Alan Winde.

Visiting the campus during a briefing on Monday, Winde wished the injured firefighters a speedy recovery and said it was “devastating to hear of the loss of major heritage sites… along with vast tracts of land”.

It was five firefighters too many, during a conflagration whose ferocity no one had expected to feel this late during the fire season, which normally peaks in December and January.

Indeed, this has been an autumn of attrition.


Firefighters battle a raging fire in Vredehoek on 19 April 2021 in Cape Town. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)

On Sunday night, the fabled smoking contest between the devil and Van Hunks, the Dutch pirate etched into the fabric of the city’s legends, met its match in a suspected arsonist. Caught doing the supposedly unthinkable, a suspect in his thirties was taken into custody for reportedly starting a brand-new blaze, even as scores of firefighters still battled fire number one on the other side of Devil’s Peak above Philip Kgosana Drive.

At a press briefing on Monday, JP Smith, mayoral committee member for safety and security, said: “After dark, we suddenly started getting a flood of calls from people, saying, ‘Quick, quick, the community is seeing three people walking through the bush, with fires starting as they’re going.”

When a law-enforcement officer questioned the suspect about whether he had started the fire, Smith noted that, “The person responded in the affirmative and said, ‘Yes, I did.’”

Smith added: “He was spotted by a resident, who tracked him down with the help of his sons and the family’s dogs. The matter is with the SAPS for investigation and further details will follow as they become available.”


The wildfire broke out from the slopes of Table Mountain and spread rapidly. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)

Night-time temperatures cooled the city somewhat, but the race against the mammoth fire was still heating up. When most Capetonians woke to a new working week on Monday, the kind of southeaster typically associated with the height of summer was tearing across the City Bowl.

Fire smoke mingled with clouds billowing out of Van Hunks’ and the devil’s pipes, and pushed the glowing haze towards the Atlantic Seaboard and on to the Foreshore. With the winds picking up by 2am, residents on Vredehoek’s wildland edge had started pouring out of their homes in the small hours. On their person and in their cars: their children, pets and most precious belongings.

Disaster Risk Management staff and volunteers evacuated several streets in the suburb, including the Disa Park residential towers and all nearby schools.

The Vredehoek fire had been contained by 2.30pm, when Philip Prins, Table Mountain National Park fire manager, released a statement.



Throughout much of the day, however, the southeaster rattled doors and windows like thin cymbals. The smell of smoke curled its tentacles through every conceivable crevice. And the wind, that merciless wind, would prevent firefighting corps from smiting the inferno. By Monday afternoon at 3.30, the fire had curled around the north face of Devil’s Peak towards Tafelberg Road.

According to Prins, 86 firefighters and five teams had “already been deployed for a day shift”, while “36 firefighters will be on the fire line tonight. In total, 165 firefighters and 13 vehicles are on site.”

Although four helicopters at some R36,000 an hour each had been deployed on Sunday, no aerial support was possible on Monday due to the unfavourable weather conditions.

On Monday night, fire crews from South African National Parks, Working on Fire, NCC Wildfires, the City of Cape Town, and Volunteer Wildfire Services were still working around the clock to suppress the ongoing fire.

UCT remained closed, yet Prins was hopeful that the wind would die by Tuesday morning, allowing aerial resources to be deployed to fight the remainders of the fire. He said the majority of it had been suppressed.

“The fire is still burning, with several flare-ups receiving attention. All efforts will continue throughout the night,” Western Cape government spokesperson James-Brent Styan told Daily Maverick at 7.45pm on Monday. “The wind remains a factor, but is projected to slow slightly. The evacuees have been allowed to return to their homes.”

Roads around the affected areas were still cordoned off, while fires were being monitored at Perth Road, Zonnebloem and De Waal Drive. There were active fires at Groote Schuur Hospital Drive and Deer Park, he said. DM/OBP