The Humansdorp fire department was still frantically answering telephone calls on Wednesday evening as blazes ran rampant through the southern part of the Eastern Cape.
A spokesperson said the N2 highway, which was closed to traffic earlier on Wednesday and had vehicles backed up for kilometres, had been reopened.
Working on Fire (WoF) spokesperson Val Charlton said not even the WoF teams could get there early on Wednesday.
She pointed out though that, in the Witfontein area of George, WoF teams had doused 20 fires in one day.
”WoF went in hard and fast, and got rid of them quickly.”
In the rest of the southern and Eastern Cape on Wednesday, fires have been raging, many out of control, since Friday last week.
”Houses have burnt down and at least 15 000ha of forestry has been lost,” Charlton said.
People were evacuated between Humansdorp and Hankey and from the Sunnyside area near the Van Stadens River bridge.
On Wednesday, there were 17 fires burning out of control in the southern and Western Cape alone.
Charlton said the cost of the prolonged fires, and the damage they had caused, would ”run into billions of rands”.
”Thankfully the weather has turned. The wind has dropped considerably and I reckon in the next 24 hours we should see the back of this.”
Charlton said many of the fires could have been prevented.
”Invasive plants have played a major role in these fires and entire areas of the southern and Eastern Cape have a lot of invasive plants on the land, like wattle. Like fynbos, they are born to burn.”
She said eradicating invasive plants is not just a bio-diversity principle.
”It’s good fire management too. Invasive plants thrive on fire and represent an enormous fuel load.”
In terms of the Veld and Forest Fire Act (1988), landowners or land tenants are responsible for fire-protection measures on their properties.
”Local authorities or disaster management should not be the first line of defence.”
She said it does not matter who the land owner or tenant is.
”Whoever it is, government or private, they are responsible for any fire that starts and spreads on their land.”
Charlton said there is ”lots” that landowners or tenants could have done to prevent the fires.
”These fires come every two or three years. We know it, they know it. What have they done to minimise the risk?”
Charlton, exhausted after days of media enquiries, said these fires were still part of the winter blaze season.
”The summer ones are still to come.” — Sapa