Firefighters were starting to get control by Saturday evening of the blaze that gutted one house and damaged nine others on the slopes of Table Mountain, Cape Town fire chief Piet Smith said.
”We haven’t got it fully contained yet, but we’re slowly getting it under control now,” he said.
There was no threat at the time to other houses.
The fire, which started above Camps Bay on Saturday morning, destroyed a home in Hely Hutchinson Avenue.
Eight of the other dwellings affected were in the upper reaches of Camps Bay, and one in Glencoe Avenue in Gardens, on the city bowl side of the mountain.
Four helicopters were used while daylight lasted to water-bomb the fire.
As it licked round the corner of Table Mountain, the fire burned an area of fynbos above the lower cable station before it was brought under control.
On Saturday evening, firefighters were damping down flare-ups in trees above houses in the upper reaches of Gardens and Oranjezicht.
Off-duty and reservist firefighters were called in to fight the blaze, along with teams from South African National Parks and Working on Fire.
City disaster-management services spokesperson John Brown said every disaster-management staffer had reported for duty, as well as a number of volunteers — members of the public from as far afield as Atlantis.
Disaster management evacuated residents from several houses in Camps Bay on Saturday afternoon.
The cable station and a number of roads in the area were also closed off, and an appeal was made to hikers on the mountain to leave the area.
Firefighters were on Saturday night also still battling a fire burning in bush in the Big Bay area on the eastern shore of Table Bay, which Smith earlier said was ”running towards houses”.
At 10pm, he said the firefighters, supported by 12 firefighting vehicles, were still trying to contain the blaze, and were protecting properties in the area.
Earlier on Saturday, between 300 and 400 people were left homeless when a fire destroyed about 100 shacks at an informal settlement in Philippi on the Cape Flats. No one was injured.
City disaster-management spokesperson John Brown said the shack fire, which started at about 11am and spread rapidly, was put out quite quickly.
Those affected by the fire would be housed by the local community. The cause of the fire was unknown and no injuries were reported.
All three fires were fanned by a raging south-easter. — Sapa