Every land manager knows that early detection and rapid response is the best method for keeping your property safe from wildfires. Often the first person to arrive at a wildfire is a forester or farmer with a ‘bakkie sakkie’ which is able to get close enough to the fire to extinguish it before it gets big, dangerous and out of control.
Those precious few minutes provide a window of opportunity that can make the difference between a minor fire statistic and a major wildfire disaster. It’s at times like this that the forester/farmer wants to know that the bakkie sakkie on the back of his vehicle is armed and loaded and ready to deploy a jet of water with enough velocity to kill the fire quickly and efficiently.
Now two heavy-weight equipment suppliers - Husqvarna and ANCO Manufacturing - have collaborated in an exciting partnership to develop a highly effective, robust and reliable 'Bakkie Sakkie' mobile firefighting unit that is well adapted to combating veld and forest fires.
Ruan van Schalkwyk, Husqvarna's Area Business Manager for Limpopo and Mpumalanga, and the project's pointsman, explains: "The concept is simple yet remarkably ingenious. ANCO designed a water tank engineered to be mounted at the rear of a bakkie (pickup truck). Powered by a robust Husqvarna multi-purpose engine (MPE) and a high-capacity water pump, the result is a mobile firefighting unit that can be rapidly deployed to combat fires, even in the most remote and challenging terrains.”
The key component of this firefighting innovation is the Husqvarna HH 163 MP multi-purpose engine, known for its reliability and robustness. It features a powerful 163cc petrol engine that is durable, water, and rust-resistant, making it ideal for the 'Bakkie Sakkie' unit.
“This engine is built to withstand the harsh conditions often encountered during firefighting,” says Ruan. One of the standout features of the HH 163 MP is its optimised combustion chamber and air vent, resulting in lower fuel consumption and reduced emissions during operation.
Casper Pieterse, the Operations Manager at ANCO Manufacturing, says that the decision to partner with Husqvarna was an easy one. “The idea for the collaboration originated with Husqvarna South Africa’s Managing Director, Pieter Smuts. When it was presented to us, we recognised the potential of their product powering the ‘Bakkie Sakkie’, offering farmers a game-changing, reliable solution to the very real and ongoing threat of veld fires.”
Anco Manufacturing is a proudly South African company that specialises in the manufacture of a variety of fire fighting units and equipment as well as silviculture equipment used in forestry, such as mechanised boom planters.
By combining the ‘Bakkie Sakkie’ with the HH 163 MP multi-purpose engine that fits snugly on the back of a bakkie, farmers and foresters can respond swiftly and effectively to fires, making all the difference in containing a blaze before it escalates.
“Husqvarna has an impressive reputation for reliability, and we are confident that by combining our manufacturing expertise with Husqvarna’s powerful MPE, we have a dependable resource that will deliver optimal performance when it’s needed most,” adds Casper.
The partnership between Husqvarna and ANCO Manufacturing has positioned both companies as innovators in firefighting technology. Their commitment to creating an effective product that will assist professionals, as well as farmers in their firefighting efforts, showcases their ongoing dedication to finding creative solutions that also maximise safety. The ‘Bakkie Sakkie’ represents a new standard in innovation and another step forward in ensuring that first responders have the tools they need to access and attack fires before they get away.
Discovering the cause and origin of a destructive wildfire
Fire expert Dave Dobson was hired to find the cause and origin of a wildfire that left a swathe of destruction across farms and forestry plantations in the KZN midlands in 2007. Working years after the event, Dave followed the trail of smoke to uncover the origin of the runaway fire that burnt thousands of hectares to a cinder …
The dispute surrounding the ‘Kentucky’ fire of 25th June 2007 that devastated farms and commercial forests in the Curry’s Post area of KwaZulu-Natal has eventually been settled. The fire caused extensive damage to privately owned farms and commercial forest plantations in the area.
As a result of the fire one of the plantation owners instituted legal proceedings against the owners of two properties where the fire was purported to have originated. This case study deals with the case against the second Defendant, the owner of the farm Kentucky.
The challenges The objective of every fire investigation is to establish the cause and origin of the fire and to determine the ignition sequence.
The first challenge, and one that is regularly encountered in work of this nature, is the fact that I was appointed to investigate the origin and spread of this fire on behalf of the Defendant some seven years after the event (i.e. in 2014).
The Defendant was not a member of the local Fire Protection Association. This raised two issues. The first was that the Defendant was deemed negligent in the event of a fire originating or exiting his property and the onus rested on the Defendant then to prove his innocence. The second issue was that the Defendant was denied access to information held by members of the Fire Protection Association. This was particularly important in respect of the origin of the fire under investigation.
Other issues that contributed to the charge of negligence against the Defendant related to the presence of a compartment of plantation waste/slash located on the boundary between the Defendant’s farm and a neighbouring commercial forest plantation. This was deemed to be a fire risk which contributed to a massive flare-up that resulted in the fire spreading to the Plaintiff’s plantations.
The fires A number of fires occurred during this period. The first two occurred on the property adjoining Kentucky Farm (St Clair Estate) while the third, as will be shown later, arose on Kentucky Farm. This led unfortunately to the fire becoming known colloquially as ‘the Kentucky Fire’ which was not entirely correct!
The first fire (fire A) occurred on Sunday 24 June 2007. It was extinguished on St Clair Estate (Kentucky’s neighbour) and played no further role in the events that unfolded the following day.
The second fire (fire B) started on the morning of Monday 25 June 2007 on St Clair Estate and swept through Kentucky Farm fanned by extreme weather conditions.
A third fire (fire C), that was not reported, started on Kentucky Farm during the afternoon of Monday 25 June 2007. This is the fire that resulted in the extensive damage to commercial plantations and farms in the area, which was the focus of this lawsuit.
Data collection I approached the investigation in a systematic manner beginning with a site visit and an interview with the Defendant. This proved useful in providing circumstantial evidence tracing the progress of the fire through the Defendant’s property. Of particular importance however, was acquainting myself with the overall fire area which was to prove beneficial later in the investigation.
Empirical data was collected in the form of weather data during the time of the fire, interviews and fire reports from various parties who were involved in fighting the fire as well as photographs taken from the spotter aircraft monitoring the fire. A vital piece of evidence was pictures taken of the origin and spread of the fire recorded by Fire Hawk’s locally based fire tower. This information was not readily available to the Defendant since he was not a member of the local Fire Protection Association. However, the picture sequence of the fire was in the public domain as it was being used to conduct Fire Boss Training courses. A simple request for the pictures provided access to this vital piece of information!
In addition, and rather late in the day, an Expert Report was received from the Plaintiff’s legal team.
Cause and origin of the fire Once the data had been collected and analysed it was possible to develop a hypothesis of the events that occurred on this day. This hypothesis was then subjected to systems analysis to develop a broad understanding of what happened and to avoid linear thinking. This initial hypothesis is depicted in the following diagramme.
In developing this initial hypothesis consideration was given to the summons which suggested that the fire originated from the Sunday night fire (fire A) that had – according to the summons - not been properly extinguished. Various witness statements however refuted this contention. Furthermore, picture evidence obtained from the Fire Hawk camera appeared to indicate that the fire that damaged the Plaintiff’s plantations originated near some homes on the neighbouring St Claire Estate and was the result of a member of the household throwing out ash from the previous night’s hearth fire during the morning of Monday 25 June (fire B).
When examining a problem systematically there are tools in systems thinking that can assist with an enquiry. Systems archetypes are one such tool. As one works with the problem, developing the story, identifying the key variables and sketching them in causal loop diagrams, patterns begin to emerge which provide keys to unlocking parts of the problem. These generic patterns are described in systems thinking as archetypes (Kim, D., H. and Anderson, V. 1998).
A typical “Escalation” archetype now emerges where discarded ash from a previous night’s fire catches alight and starts a fire (fire B). This fire later enters the plantation slash on Kentucky and under deteriorating weather conditions escapes causing havoc to farms and commercial forest plantations down wind. This served as an initial hypothesis for testing against further empirical evidence.
The crucial evidence related to the slash in an old pine compartment located on Kentucky Farm, adjacent to the boundary between Kentucky farm and a neighbouring commercial forestry estate. The trees in this compartment had been clearfelled six years prior to the fire and most of the plantation residue would have decomposed by the time of the fire. Nevertheless the Plaintiff’s Expert presented pictures showing clear lines of fire burning in the old pine compartment which were ascribed to the brush piles having caught alight. The picture also clearly showed a road in the area.
I was aware that no such road existed and began searching for an answer to this conundrum. It turned out that the fire depicted in the photographs was actually burning on a property on the other side of the Curry’s Post road some 1.5 km away! The owner of the property was contacted and confirmation was received that he had in fact cleared and stacked jungle wattle and gum in this area of his farm a few months prior to the fire! The picture of the plantation slash burning that was presented as evidence of negligence on the part of the Defendant was incorrect – the photos were of another property on the other side of the Curry’s Post road.
Brush burning 1.5 km away from the Kentucky fire.
It was time to test the validity of the evidence of the fire entering and escaping from the old pine compartment on Kentucky Farm.
A closer inspection of the photographic evidence of the fire in the section of Kentucky farm bordering the commercial forest revealed further interesting empirical data. The first was clear evidence – i.e. straight line burns - of firebreak burning in kikuyu camps adjacent to the old pine compartment on Kentucky. Wild fires do not burn in straight lines. From the available photographs it was evident that the party responsible for initiating this firebreak burn lost control of the operation resulting in it entering the old pine slash compartment on Kentucky farm, and subsequently the neighbouring forest where it was brought under control by the land owner. However, the fire in the old pine slash compartment on Kentucky continued to burn. This was fire C.
Unburnt Kikuyu camps on Kentucky Farm. Fire heading to the Kentucky homestead.
The events leading to the origin of this fire were never reported, although mention was made in a fire report of drip torches being issued to a helitack ground crew who were dropped in the area in an effort to mop up and contain the fire.
Soon after this, evidence of the fire break between Kentucky and the commercial forest plantation being half burnt indicated a further attempt to contain the fire. The Expert for the Plaintiff (who had previously been contracted by Kentucky’s neighbour to prepare a report on the fire) mentioned the “application of a counter fire along the land owner’s boundary closing up to the main plantation road.”
Clearly there were numerous attempts to introduce counter fires and fire-breaks along this boundary under extreme weather conditions.
At the same time as fire C was burning in the old pine compartment on Kentucky farm, a power failure at the landing strip where the water bombers were refuelling delayed their return to the fire. A further complication arose when weather conditions became too dangerous to fly. Eventually the fire exited the old pine compartment and was driven, out of control, by the extreme weather conditions across many farms before entering the Plaintiff’s commercial pine plantations where extensive damage was experienced.
Final hypothesis It now becomes possible to develop a final hypothesis describing the fire. This hypothesis is summarised in the diagramme that follows.
Initially as mentioned a preliminary hypothesis was considered which was represented by an “Escalating” archetype: Discarded ash catching alight and resulting in the fire spreading onto Kentucky Farm from whence it enters the slash in the old pine compartment and later spreads to neighbouring farms and forest plantations (fire B).
However, on further investigation a second archetype emerged – a ‘Fixes that Fail’ archetype where an unintended consequence of the use of counter fires or fire-breaks set in an effort to contain fire B, results in the fire escaping and entering the old pine compartment on Kentucky farm from whence, after a delay (indicated by the parallel lines) the fire enters farms and commercial forests causing immense damage (fire C).
An interesting addition to the overall picture is the loop linking Curry’s Post road to the main fire. Pictures of the windrowed plantation slash on a property some 1.5 km away from the Defendant’s farm across the Curry’s Post road from the Defendant was presented as evidence of negligence on the part of the Defendant. This was shown as being clearly incorrect!
Results After careful consideration of the evidence and interviews with people involved it became clear that the Defendant did not act negligently. The unintended consequence of trying to “fix” the problem of fire B exiting Kentucky by burning counter fires and fire-breaks on the Defendant’s property is the probable cause of the subsequent damage to farms and forests downwind of Kentucky. This counter fire activity was never reported.
The evidence presented of the extreme fire danger posed by the plantation slash on Kentucky plus the photographic evidence of windrowed slash burning in support of this claim was refuted. In the end the Plaintiff’s summons was deemed to have no substance and was subsequently withdrawn. The Plaintiff ended up having to pay the Defendant the cost of suit.
References KIM, D., H., ANDERSON, V. 1998. Systems Archetypes Basics. From Story to Structure. Waltham Massachusetts, Pegasus Communications Inc.
Protecting forestry equipment, operators & the environment from fire
If you are buying a new Tigercat machine from AfrEquip, there is a good chance that your equipment will come with a FOGMAKER Fire Suppression System already installed. This is because Tigercat and AfrEquip have recognized the effective technology behind FOGMAKER’s high-pressure water mist fire suppression system, and will recommend to customers that a FOGMAKER system should be installed prior to sending any piece of forestry equipment out into the field to protect this valuable asset, the operator and the surrounding environment.
The majority of forestry equipment fires are preventable - strict housekeeping and timely maintenance are key factors in this strategy. However in the unfortunate event that a fire does strike, early detection while the fire is small and contained is crucial. FOGMAKER’s automatic fire detection and suppression system is designed and installed to effectively detect and suppress fires within the engine and hydraulic compartments of forestry equipment.
FOGMAKER South Africa can assist customers with financing if needed. Installations are scheduled soonest with minimal equipment downtime.
Protect your assets working in-field by reducing the risk of fire.
The FOGMAKER system can be installed on the production line at the TIGERCAT manufacturing facility or in-field by certified FOGMAKER field engineers. Emergency preparedness training is part of the FOGMAKER fire suppression offering, which is conducted on site after every installation. This provides operators with the confidence and the knowledge to react quickly and correctly in the case of a heat or fire incident, thereby minimising the impact of the fire and preventing its spread to the surrounding environment.
The synergy between AfrEquip, Tigercat and FOGMAKER is all about promoting responsible forestry through safeguarding and protecting equipment, people and the environment.
The fact that FOGMAKER is a water-based fire suppression system is another feather in its cap. The FOGMAKER fire suppression system simultaneously disrupts all three sides to the fire triangle. FOGMAKER’s suppressant includes, in low concentrations, an Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF) which forms a protective barrier on the surface of any flammable material or fuel, thus preventing the fuel from being available for combustion. FOGMAKER refers to this as Pure Performance with Triple Action3.
Compact FOGMAKER fire suppression system installed in a forest harvesting machine.
FOGMAKER South Africa offers a comprehensive sales and service package to customers including sales and installation, financing, training, routine scheduled inspections, service calls and system recharges.
If you order your FOGMAKER fire suppression installation before the end of 2021 you will also be contributing to an exciting reforestation project with FOGMAKER South Africa and PLATBOS forest in the Cape! So, you can help protect our forests by preventing fires and planting trees.
AfrEquip supplies the South African forestry industry with modern, mobile, purpose-built equipment. The company’s mission is to be the leading supplier of equipment, parts, and quality service in the Southern African forestry and biofuel market. AfrEquip’s services include sales, maintenance, product support and all the relevant training courses designed to enhance operator productivity.
AfrEquip has five branches located in South Africa’s forestry hotspots: Pietermaritzburg (KZN), Mbombela / Nelspruit (Mpumalanga), Mkhondo / Piet Retief (Mpumalanga) and Ugie (Eastern Cape).