Eleven people were reported by police to have burnt to death in fires that engulfed parts of Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal on Friday.
Nine people, including a six-year-old child, died in fires at Mayville, Winterton and Dumbu near Vryheid in KwaZulu-Natal on Friday night. Superintendent Vincent Mdunge said fires claimed seven people in Dumbu, one person in Mayville and the six-year-old in Winterton.
In Winterton, 24 people were also seriously injured and taken to hospital, and 200 shacks were destroyed in Mayville.
In Mpumalanga, a holidaying Johannesburg couple were burnt beyond recognition after trying to escape an enormous fire that ripped through a tourist lodge on Friday night. Police spokesperson Superintendent Abie Khoabane said the couple were in their car, trying to escape the flames at the time of their deaths.
The fire started at Studs Farm outside Machadodorp with heavy winds causing the fire to travel up to 90km/h. About 800 cattle, a number of sheep, four houses and telephone lines were also engulfed by the flames.
Khoabane said a hotel in Graskop also burnt down, but nobody was injured.
In Graskop and Sabie, fires destroyed two sawmills and about 15 000ha of forestry plantations according to preliminary estimates, Working on Fire said.
It reported that more than 40 wildfires had caused extensive damage in both provinces and included a blaze in Swaziland.
It said that the ”fire weather” will continue for a number of days. The weather in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga might worsen within the next few days.
CEO Johan Heine said: ”We must now move into an extended attack mode, deploying firefighting resources strategically where they will be most effective.”
Twenty-six aerial firefighting resources were operational and an additional three South African National Defence Force helicopters were recruited to assist. Five 22-person Working on Fire crews were supporting the local authorities’ and forestry companies’ firefighting forces, with eight crews expected from Gauteng and the Free State. — Sapa