Six firemen died on Sunday while trying to bring raging fires in Mpumalanga under control, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry said on Monday.
The department’s commercial manager Kim Weir said five firefighters who were travelling in a Land Rover died after they could not get their vehicle away from the front of the fire.
Another firefighter drowned after his truck rolled into a dam.
All the deaths took place in the Sabie and Graskop areas.
Weir said there were still four fires raging out of control in these areas.
Estimates suggest between 25 000 and 30 000 hectares of forest have been destroyed in Sabie and Graskop, he said.
Spokesperson Val Charlton for Working on Fire said there were 250 firefighters working in the affected areas. Working on Fire is a government-supported initiative formed in 2003 to develop an integrated national fire prevention programme.
She said Working on Fire had brought in teams from Gauteng, Free State and Mpumulanga.
Four firefighting teams from the Western Cape were expected to arrive in Mpumalanga on Monday.
She said fires in Swaziland were thought to have scorched about 18 000 hectares.
A fire in Pigg’s Peak in Swaziland was still raging after two days and two fires in Lesotho had flared up again.
Weir said there were still small fires in KwaZulu-Natal but these were being contained.
Thirteen deaths
The office of the provincial minister for agriculture and environmental affairs said on Monday that 13 people had died in veld fires which swept through parts of KwaZulu-Natal over the weekend.
Reports indicate there were 10 deaths at eDumbe, one at Entumeni and one at Embongolowane. A young child also died in Winterton, said department spokesperson Mbulelo Baloyi.
He said about 25 injured people were taken over the weekend to hospital in Winterton.
All but four had been discharged by Monday.
Two people were also seriously injured in the Nkandla area and 64 farms were destroyed in the northern KwaZulu-Natal region.
Baloyi also said hundreds of homesteads and eight houses belonging to labourers were gutted. The fires have damaged the homes of about 400 people.
Damage has also been done to power lines, fencing, horticulture tunnels, veld grazing areas, sugar-cane crops and water reticulation systems.
Thousands of cattle in fire-affected regions have been killed or put down after being severely burnt.
Baloyi said farmers and Working on Fire had brought the fires in the province under control by Monday.
Assessments into the damage caused have begun and are expected to be completed by August 10.
He said local disaster management teams had distributed emergency blankets, food parcels and tents to communities over the weekend. – Sapa