A sorry sight … a fine pine compartment burnt in the Karkloof fire.
Wildfire season has kicked off with a bang in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands with a number of destructive fires that have claimed the lives of 14 people, destroyed dozens of homes and equipment and damaged thousands of hectares of commercial forestry and agricultural land, not to mention the loss of livestock and wildlife.
According to Simon Thomas of the KZN FPA, the number and severity of wildfires in the province has escalated during July due to high fuel loads and extremely hot and dry conditions prevailing across the region.
A wildfire that broke out near Boston in mid-July resulted in the death of seven firefighters who were caught in the flames when the wind suddenly changed direction. Three of the firefighters died on the scene, and four more died later from their injuries.
The firebreak between the pine plantation (right) and the property on the left was hopelessly inadequate and failed to stop the spread of the fire.
Reports have also come through of the recent death of a forester in the Ixopo area who was severely burnt when the wind changed direction causing a controlled burn to run out of control.
Sunday 7th July was another high fire danger day with a number of fires breaking out in Mooi River and Karkloof areas of the midlands. The Mooi River fire reportedly burnt a lot of forestry and conservation land around Mount Gilboa, and another fire in Karkloof that started up later that night burnt through a pine plantation as well as several smallholder farms.
The Zululand coastal area has been fairly quiet, but there have been some big fires in the Melmoth area, also in early July.
Simon says that land managers and fire fighters across the province are on high alert as the hot and dry conditions are continuing. He said that the weather forecast for the weeks ahead are very uncertain, but that there are hopes that early spring rains could bring some relief by mid-September.
In most cases the exact cause of the fires is very difficult to determine, but fingers have been pointed at deliberate arson fires. This seems to be the cause of the Karkloof fire as the ignition point is clearly identifiable in the landscape. According to local people there was no lightning on the day of the fire to cause ignition, and the Mooi River fire was too far away to have caused spotting.
Local smallholders in the area say that the fire breaks prepared by the plantation managers are hopelessly inadequate and did not prevent the fire – which was fanned by winds up to 70 km per hour - from entering their adjacent properties. Three dwellings were also destroyed in the blaze.
Greg Gardiner surveys the wreckage of his family home that was burnt to the ground in the Karkloof fire.
The remains of Greg Gardiner’s water tanks, destroyed by the wildfire.
Poachers have been fingered for starting the Boston fire. Apparently the poachers light the bush to drive out the animals so that they can hunt them down, and then the fire gets away.
Land managers are urged to be alert so that they can respond quickly to any fires starting on their properties. It is much easier to put out a fire when it is still small than it is to tackle a fire that is running out of control.
Members of the public are also urged to be vigilant, and to not start any fires in the open – especially on high fire danger days.
All landowners in fire-prone rural areas should be members of the local fire protection association, which are there to provide assistance and support throughout the fire season.
Three weeks after the fire …
Wildfires are set to become commonplace
Here's how World Cup rugby star and farmer Kwagga Smith prepares for fire season...
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) reports that the increasing urbanisation of South Africa’s rapidly growing population is a significant factor impacting the risk of wildfires. They explain: “More and more people, assets and infrastructure are placed on the boundary or interface between developed land and fire-prone vegetation – what we call the wildland-urban interface (WUI) – where they are exposed to wildfires.” They go on to say that the combination of climate and vegetation characteristics that favour fires, and growing human exposure, results in significant wildfire risk across the country, especially in the southern and eastern parts.
“Unfortunately, the situation will not improve because climate change will result in more frequent and extended high fire danger periods and, therefore, an increased likelihood of severe fires,” they further add, advising that the best option is to reduce fire risks and keep them as low as possible.
Kwagga Smith a world-cup winning rugby player, is also a farmer in one of the highest fire-risk areas in our country. “The Dullstroom area has experienced some devastating fires and as a farmer, you need to be prepared at all times. Drawing from his personal experience, he shares valuable advice on fire prevention and safety.
These are his five top tips for BEING PREPARED for fire season:
Burn fire breaks
Start this process in summer rather than waiting until after the first frost. Burn the tracer lines so that it’s easy to burn the breaks after the frost kills the grass in winter. Apply glyphosate using sprayers to create a 1m wide strip along the fence line and another 1m strip about 20m into the farm. Once this grass dies off, burn it. Then wait for the frost, which will kill the grass in the 20m strip between the tracer lines. After the frost, burn this area. This final burned strip becomes your firebreak.
Skill up, Gear up
A fire break will not stop a fire though; it’s there to give you space to work from. Back burning, beating or some other form of firefighting, will still be necessary to stop a fire from spreading. It is, thus, essential that everyone is skilled and equipped to be able to manage fires.
Invest wisely
When you’re facing a raging inferno, any money saved from buying inferior equipment can quickly become a costly mistake. Rather invest in quality machinery that will perform reliably when it is needed most.
Be ready
Before fire season, service and test all necessary equipment. Make sure pumps and leaf blowers are easily accessible, chainsaws are sharp, tractors are fuelled, fire beaters are intact, and your ‘bakkie-sakkie’ is full. This will ensure that everything you need is ready and on standby. In the case of an emergency, preparedness can make all the difference.
Share the Responsibility
Fire defence shouldn't rely on a single person. It's crucial that multiple people know who to call and what to do in an emergency. Ensure that several individuals can take charge if you are not around, thereby creating a more robust fire response system.
“My dad always said “Goedkoop is duurkoop” – “Penny wise, pound foolish”. That’s why our family invests in Husqvarna’s sprayers, chainsaws, blowers and pumps to ensure we have quality, reliable equipment on hand in the event of a fire. You never know when you will need it and being prepared can make all the difference,” concludes Kwagga.
2nd October … smoke plume visible for miles around.
It has been dubbed ‘the Great Woodchip Fire of 2023’. It destroyed 200 000 tons of woodchips at NCT’s Richards Bay facility, severely damaged infrastructure and will leave a big hole in the forestry and wood processing value chains. But South Africans are a tenacious bunch, and as soon as the smoke had cleared the hard work of mopping up, assessing the damage and planning the repair and rebuild began. The optimistic expectation is that the timber at the NCT facility will be flowing on one chipping line within eight months, and business will be back to normal production within a year to 14 months.
Chip pile fires are notorious for their ferocity – especially when fanned by hot, gale-force winds – and they are always very hard to extinguish. And so it turned out at NCT’s chipping and export facility in Richards Bay when a fire broke out on a chip pile on the last day of September, and raged for 10 days straight, consuming two massive chip piles and threatening to spread to neighbouring businesses and suburbs. Fire fighters from far and wide, local businesses and the people of Richards Bay rallied around and finally extinguished the blaze on October 12.
NCT general manager Danny Knoesen and his team have spent the past few weeks tirelessly shuttling between the fire ground zero, the post-fire mop-up and rebuild war room, member tree farmers and NCT customers on the other side of the world to keep everyone informed, on board and to come up with alternative arrangements to mitigate the disruption to business that the fire has wrought.
2nd October … burning through the night.
According to current estimates it will take around eight months to get one chipping line going, while the team is considering the possibility of getting temporary chipping capacity in place even sooner. Current estimate is that the facility could get back to normal production levels in a year to 14 months. NCT’s plan pre-fire was to build a third chipping line by 2025, and this is still on the cards.
Good news
The good news is that the fire has been completely extinguished, and nobody lost their lives or their homes despite the highly dangerous conditions faced by NCT staff, firefighters, neighbouring businesses and local inhabitants.
The not-such-good news is that 200 000 tons of woodchips and round logs – i.e. all of the stock that was in the NCT yard at the time of the fire – has been destroyed or so badly damaged as to be worthless. There is also extensive damage to infrastructure including conveyers and gantries on both the wattle and Eucalyptus chip lines. It is nothing short of a multi-billion rand catastrophe.
4th October … fire still going strong.
NCT has declared ‘force majeure’ with three large export customers in China and Japan, and has already met with them to explain the circumstances and try find a way to mitigate the disruption to their businesses until NCT can get back to the business of supplying them with chips. Force majeure is a clause that is included in contracts to remove liability for unforeseen and unavoidable catastrophes that interrupt the expected course of events and prevent participants from fulfilling their obligations in terms of the contract.
Impact on NCT member tree farmers
Then there is the inevitable slow down in timber flowing from NCT’s 2 000 member tree farmers who supply the co-op with their raw material, whose cashflow will be severely dented as a result of the fire. This will have a ripple effect, impacting on contractors and other suppliers who feed goods and services into this forestry value chain.
Danny admitted that the tree farmers are in a difficult situation as a result of the loss of stock and damage to the export facility, but the NCT team is hard at work to find ways to mitigate the impacts on them.
4th October … both chip piles burning.
“The wattle growers need to be able to harvest so the bark can be stripped and passed on to the bark factories at UCL and NTE, so we are by and large encouraging wattle members to continue to harvest, and to hold their timber stock in depot. We will add a few more ships to our Durban operation to try to mitigate the lack of wattle business for the upcoming season, and we think that TWK will do the same. So we could try and capture about 90% of the wattle season.
“On the euc side we will chase domestic markets to see what we can do to try and improve the euc offtake from our members – but that is going to be a challenge, especially for our smaller growers. We are looking at ways to mitigate that, but we don’t have all the answers yet,” said Danny.
As to the longer term impacts on the business, Danny believes they will not lose any of their regular customers as the demand for NCT’s woodchips will continue to be strong.
“We know our export customers will wait for us. We are an important cog in their wheel and NCT is a vital supplier to the pulp and paper sector in Asia, and once our facility is up and running we hope to get back to business as normal,” he said.
A commitment has been made by NCT to retain all their staff, who will be re-focused on recovery and rebuilding efforts. NCT employs 700 people.
7th October … excavators spreading and cooling the chip pile. Conveyor system damage visible.
Containing the fire
Another piece of good news: the fire didn’t spread to the chip pile at the TWK woodchip export facility situated right next door to NCT despite numerous incidents of spotting which were quickly extinguished. Nor did it spread to Foskor, a major manufacturer of fertilizers, located behind TWK. Foskor has stockpiles of sulphur and ammonia housed in their yard that are used in their manufacturing process, which could have caused extensive damage had they caught fire. Sulphur is highly toxic, and ammonia is like gunpowder.
More good news: despite the fact that at the height of the inferno burning debris was being blown by gale-force winds across the John Ross highway and igniting the brush and threatening nearby houses, these flare-ups were contained by firefighters from the municipality and local businesses as well as local residents armed with buckets of water and makeshift fire beaters.
7th October … nearly there.
Fish kill
Not-such-good-news: fish were reported to have washed up dead in a canal close to the NCT yard that is connected to the sea, possibly as a result of the water used in the firefighting activities that entered the storm water system which discharged into the canal. NCT has been issued with an environmental directive by the environmental authorities and they are responding to that directive. In the meanwhile NCT has called in Ground Truth, a multi-disciplinary consulting company with a specialist focus on issues surrounding water resources, biodiversity and environmental engineering, to help evaluate the causes of the fish die-off and limit the damage.
“We suspect at this stage that it was dissolved oxygen deficiency in the water, but we will wait for the results of the tests,” said Danny.
So what caused the fire in the first place?
Progress of the fire
Apparently it started under a conveyer system on the side of a chip pile that was not running at the time and had not been in production for 10 days prior to the start of the fire. The NCT team believe that it was not caused by equipment or the conveyor, it was not an accident and it was not arson and it was not caused by human intervention, and it was not internal combustion as it started on the outside of the chip pile. So at this stage it is a bit of a mystery.
In the meanwhile a thorough investigation into the cause of the fire is on-going, and hopefully it will come up with answers.
But what we do know is that a small wisp of smoke at the chip pile was first detected at 12.44 pm on Saturday 30 September. Within 10 minutes the NCT fire crew was on the scene under the command of NCT Operations Manager Ryno Martin.
Weather conditions at the time were hot, dry and windy. Despite the fact that the chips have a 30% moisture content, the fire, which started quite small, spread rapidly.
A second proto team arrived soon after with extra equipment. According to reports it looked like the firefighters may be able to contain the blaze, but at 4.45 pm the wind suddenly switched around from north east to south west, blowing at around 50 km/hour. This overpowered the good work that had been done and the fire got away.
Aerial water bombers despatched by the Zululand FPA were unable to attack the fire due to the dangerous conditions.
By 11 pm that night the second NCT chip pile was ablaze, and by Sunday morning the scene was like ‘hell on earth’ with the smoke plume visible for miles.
Additional fire fighting resources from all over started arriving during the day including from uMhlathuze Municipality, Transnet, Mondi, South32 and Sappi to assist the now exhausted NCT fire fighters. Fixed wing fire fighting aircraft from the Zululand FPA and the KZN FPA based in Howick as well as helicopters from Working on Fire and specialised units from ADT joined the fray.
Due to the heat of the fire and the weather conditions they were unable to contain the main blaze, and the focus shifted to preventing the nearby TWK chip pile from catching fire and setting off another chain of destructive fire events.
8th October … mopping up.
Under control
By 9th October the fire was under control and excavators were deployed to spread out the chip piles, further cooling the blaze. By the morning of the 10th October, the fire was finally extinguished.
The manner in which local people and businesses and authorities all came together during the crisis to assist and support the fire fighting effort was quite remarkable, and has not gone unnoticed. NCT sponsored an entire supplement in the local newspaper to thank everybody for their good will and their support during the fire.
Now it’s all hands on deck to get back to business, and to rebuild the facility - with enhanced fire fighting capacity. Many hard lessons have been learned from the Great Woodchip Fire of 2023, and hopefully these will prevent future fire catastrophes.
NCT General Manager Danny Knoesen (pictured) and his staff have got a big job on their hands to get NCT back to business as usual.
*All fire photos by Neels Reyneke
Local wildfire detection system shines
The FireHawk cameras mounted on the Marten Mountain Lookout Tower in Canada were monitored by the FireHawk ops room in Chile.
The South African-developed FireHawk wildfire detection system has been found to be the most effective fixed fire detection and reporting system in an international trial that took place in Canada recently.
FireHawk combines human skill with artificial intelligence to keep watch over two million hectares of forest land around the world, alerting landowners and triggering rapid response whenever a fire is detected.
Willem Oosthuizen, CEO of FireHawk South Africa, explains: “The Alberta Wildfire Detection Challenge was a collaboration between Alberta Wildfire, Alberta Innovates, and FPInnovations. Six commercially-available fixed fire detection systems were installed and operated on the Marten Mountain Lookout tower near Slave Lake, Alberta, Canada, during the 2022 wildfire season. The aim was to test these fire detection systems in an operational environment in an area that experiences an average of 20 wildfires annually.”
The trial programme organisers invited 17 leading fire detection service providers from around the world to submit applications. This was narrowed down to the best six applicants who were selected to take part in the challenge. The selected applicants were provided a contract with funding to demonstrate their systems using their own proprietary equipment. A total of 54 events were recorded during the test period, and of these 14 were real wildfires and 33 were test smokes.
The Marten Mountain Fire Lookout Tower manned by local fire watch personnel also participated in the trial in order to provide comparative data.
The FireHawk cameras mounted on the Marten Mountain Lookout Tower were monitored remotely from FireHawk’s operations base in Chile for the trial.
Study location All systems were installed on the Marten Mountain Lookout tower in Alberta, Canada. The tower is 20 km north of the Town of Slave Lake. The 40 km radius of the lookout coverage area has the following views: to the west is the waterbody of Slave Lake; to the east is a hill that limits visibility; to the south is the town of Slave Lake and the Mitsue industrial area; to the north is forest. Boreal forest species are the primary vegetation cover. Many industrial activities such as forestry, oil, and gas are also spread across the landscape.
This boreal forest area experiences a high number of wildfires due to a high number of lightning strikes and human activities. In 2011, a wildfire entered the town of Slave Lake and burned around 500 structures.
Evaluation metrics Four metrics were used to evaluate the performance of the detection systems: detection distance, reporting efficiency, location accuracy, and system availability.
Detection distance Results show the Marten Mountain Lookout observer was effective at the 40 km distance for both test smokes and wildfires. In addition, the lookout observer also detected a wildfire smoke at 46 km.
Of the six fixed detection systems, FireHawk had the best performance with an 88% detection success rate between 10 and 20 km on test smokes, and 78% between 20 and 30 km.
Reporting efficiency FireHawk had the fastest average time reporting test smokes among the six systems: 3 minutes @ 5-10 kms; 6 minutes @ 10-20 kms; 10 mins @ 20-30 kms; 7 mins @ 30-40 kms.
The Marten Mountain Lookout observer was the best performer of all trialists with an average of 4 minutes over all distances. The rest of the fixed systems exceeded 10 minutes.
System availability The total number of operational hours between July 1 and September 15 (8:00 am to 8:00 pm daily) was 924 hours.
The Marten Mountain Lookout observer did not have any downtime. Neither did FireHawk, which recorded 100% availability.
Firehawk systems use human operators. The data shows that these systems perform better than systems that do not have human operators.
Location accuracy IQ FireWatch had the best accuracy on reporting locations and was better than the Marten Mountain lookout’s performance. SmokeD was second overall, but the sample numbers were too low beyond 10 kms to determine the reliability of the result.
Night detection Night detection is the detection service provided during low or no sunlight. ForestWatch, SmokeD, and FireHawk chose to provide detection coverage outside of the operational period which included night detection. Only eight detection messages from public reporting and FireHawk were considered as night detection.
These results show that FireHawk has the ability to detect fires during night time. Two successful night detections were the results of an attended fire and a car fire. These two detection successes suggest that this type of detection system could be used as a monitoring tool at night.
Human operators Firehawk, IQ FireWatch, ForestWatch, and SmokeD systems used human operators. The data showed that these systems performed better than systems that did not have human operators.
FireHawk also had the lowest number of false alarms at 11 over the two and a half months trial period.
“We are proud that our FireHawk system experienced no downtime during the detection challenge, and had the highest number of detection successes among the systems taking part in the programme,” said Willem. “It was a privilege to take part in this international testing of different wildfire detection systems.”
Where it all began After 16 years of experience in aerial spraying and aerial fire fighting, Jake Oosthuizen formed Zululand Fire Protection Services cc. (ZFPS) in 1994 with the object of providing a service to the Zululand timber industry. Initially, the operation was started by taking over the control centre of the Zululand Fire Protection Association (ZFPA), which coordinated all fire fighting operations in the Zululand Coastal Area (approximately 80 000 hectares of timber).
At that time, the Control Centre had a very low profile and provided a basic communication service to the timber growers in the area. Over time, the Control Centre became the heart of all firefighting operations in Zululand. ZFPS expanded to include the management of ZIFPA.
In 1994, ZFPS was instrumental in the development of the FireHawk system that is today used in South Africa, Chile, Brazil, Malawi and Ghana.
FireHawk was the first computerized fire detection system in the world and has been operating commercially for the past 28 years. The first system was installed in Richmond in 1994 and is still operational today.
This is where it all started … the first FireHawk system was installed in Richmond, KwaZulu-Natal in 1994, and is still operational today.
The FireHawk system uses 360 degrees rotating high definition digital cameras to monitor areas and transmits information to a base station that is manned by operators. The software differentiates between fire, smoke and glow, and then raises an alarm. Positioning is done from a single camera, with the ability to cross reference for improved accuracy.
FireHawk now monitors approximately 591 000 hectares of timber plantations in KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga.
It also monitors 650 000 ha of timber in Chile, 155 000 ha in Brazil, 4 000 ha of sugar cane in Malawi and 600 000 ha of Burmese Teak in Ghana.
The number and severity of out-of-control wildfires are increasing around the world, causing untold damage to the environment, to infrastructure and the local economies, not to mention the loss of life and suffering of fire victims – both human and animal.
We all know why this is happening … climate change, prolonged dry spells followed by high winds, uncontrolled development on the urban-wildland interface, the proliferation of invasive alien plants leading to high fuel loads, changing land use patterns, poor land management, criminality, negligence and arson.
Yet we live in an environment here in southern Africa that is described as ‘fire-prone’. The natural landscapes around us actually need fire to maintain their ecological integrity. Surely we should have learned to manage these dynamics by now?
The fact of the matter is that fire is a primal force of nature that is not easily controlled, and in some instances is uncontrollable. Therefore human efforts to manage fire are always going to be caught short. Once a big fire is rampaging through a dry landscape with high fuel loads and strong winds behind it, there is no stopping it.
Our best option is to try and manage the conditions that fuel the development of uncontrollable wildfires in the first place, and to get our disaster teams organised to deal with the consequences when they do happen. This is easier said than done, requiring a level of cooperation between land owners, land managers, fire protection associations, fire authorities at all levels of government - and the weather gods – that has thus far escaped us.
Nelson Mandela University has made a huge contribution to efforts to understand and manage the dynamics that surround fire management through the development of a comprehensive Fire Management study programme and the hosting of annual Fire Management symposiums that bring together fire experts from around the country and the world.
Many of these fire experts attended the most recent 13th Fire Management Symposium held at NMU’s George Campus in November last year, thrashing out the issues, comparing notes and networking furiously. Useful, but unlikely to stop the next mega-fire. As one experienced delegate pointed out, we talk and talk but get no closer to achieving the level of collaboration required by all the fire stakeholders to actually make a difference.
Well controlled prescribed burn in the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg Park is designed to reduce fuel loads in an effort to prevent unwanted wildfires.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment is the absence at these symposiums of key government figures who could influence policy and resource allocation at national, provincial and local levels that would enable fire management stakeholders to ramp up their capacity to manage fire.
Forestry companies find themselves in the trenches at the fire-line, spending their own money to protect their plantations and processing facilities from wildfires, many of which are started outside of their boundaries. They prop up local fire protection associations, run fire awareness campaigns and put out fires they didn’t start.
This is where the rubber hits the tar.
One of the highlights of the recent Symposium was the presentation by Montigny Investments’ Risk Manager, Arno Pienaar. The Montigny team operates 80 000 ha of forest land in neighbouring Eswatini, and have implemented an old school ‘military style’ approach to keep fires out of their plantations, with considerable success. These are the same plantations that burnt to the ground in 2008, resulting in the closure of the Usutu pulp mill and the loss of hundreds of jobs. Montigny Investments is now the biggest single employer in Eswatini, and they simply cannot afford to allow another mega-fire to destroy it all again. So they have made their own plans, unconventional but effective (see full story here).
One of the keys to Montigny’s success, and this came up again and again during the symposium, was the need to get local communities on your side to prevent wildfires from happening. Properly on your side. Cut out arson fires started by angry, bored, poor, disgruntled neighbours, and half your battle is won.
This is way easier said than done, and involves a complete overhaul of the socio-economic conditions that prevail in much of southern Africa. It’s complicated, and goes way beyond the scope of the fire management fraternity.
Lessons from a mega-fire
Perhaps it would be useful to re-look at the learnings that Paul Gerber, Chief Executive Officer of the Southern Cape FPA, took from the 2017 mega-fire that turned large swaths of the Southern Cape region between George and PE to a cinder in 2017.
The Southern Cape Fire Protection Association has its hands full keeping wildfires out of this region.
• Overall there is a greater need for integrated fire management.
• Greater focus needs to be directed at awareness of the general public as well as different authorities, concerning the fire hazards that exist in the natural as well as built environment.
• Lack of financial resources: Plans for fire fighting are good but must be implementable by providing ample resources. The emphasis needs to be on being pro-active rather than reactive. A good example here is that helicopters are not deployed early enough while fires are still small and conditions are favourable, because of the high operating costs involved. They are only released when fires have assumed disastrous proportions, by which time conditions are often no longer safe for flying.
• Because of a general shortage of fire-fighting capacity and resources, more emphasis should be placed on pro-active fire prevention measures, especially controlled burns. In the well-known fire triangle, the fuel load, particularly the fine fuel component, is the only factor that can be managed and controlled. This is the factor on which all involved in fire prevention should concentrate.
• The use of media in informing and warning people was not effective. In the recent fire there was a lack of communication with the public/residents, as well as among fire fighting crews during the operations. The need for an independent, dedicated two-way radio communication system during disasters was identified, as communications via existing radio and cell-phone networks proved to be ineffective at times.
• Tactical and operational planning for the combatting of wildfires of this size should rely heavily on local experience and knowledge. With the introduction of authorities from elsewhere to take command, it was found that advice from local fire experts was disregarded.
• All spheres of government involved in fire disasters need to be trained in the incident command system.
• Divisional supervisors (‘fire bosses’) need to be well trained. At the Knysna fire there were not enough qualified fire bosses. Such supervisors need to undergo organised training courses. In the recent fire five FPA managers had to be made available to act as divisional supervisors.
• The need for fire fighting personnel experienced in veld fires who know how to make back-burns, was identified. The holiday resort of Buffalo Bay and the Fairview forest village were saved from being destroyed by judicious back-burns by foresters. It must be noted that some authorities would not give permission for such operations to be conducted.
• In the urban-rural interface, many houses built amongst natural vegetation burnt down. This practice must be reviewed and buildings need defendable space around them in the case of wildfires.
Here are some take-outs from the 13th Fire Management Symposium:-
A common thread of wildfires around the world … droughts followed by heat waves with temps above 40 degrees C and strong winds - Greg Forsyth, CSIR
Symposium presenters fielding questions from the floor (left to right) Ian Pienaar (Montigny), Trevor Abrahams (WoF), Paul Gerber (Southern Cape FPA) and Pam Booth (Knysna Municipality).
10 000 ha burnt in five hours. Final size of the fire: 189 000 ha. Flame lengths: 300 metres - Rodeo-Chediski fire, Arizona, 2002.
When it rains a lot in dry parts of South Africa, beware the following year the risk of wildfires increases - Greg Forsyth, CSIR
Building regulations should take fire risk into account – Greg Forsyth.
More accurate, balanced and informed reporting on fire is needed in SA – Lee Raath Brownie, Fire & Rescue International.
Fires are a people problem – Arno Pienaar, Montigny.
We need 17 000 wildland fire fighters in SA. We have 5 300 – Trevor Abrahams, Working on Fire.
One of the successes of the WoF programme are the many people who come through the programme and move into positions of employment. 60% of WoF managers are former WoF firefighters – Trevor Abrahams.
Working on Fire is a government job creation initiative that trains and deploys young fire fighters who assist landowners in times of need.
We talk and don’t implement. We are still doing it – Paul Gerber, Southern Cape FPA.
The Knysna fire was reported two months before it turned into a big fire. It was left to smoulder – Paul Gerber.
Fire is part of the African landscape. If you exclude it, it will lead to higher fuel loads and ultimately bigger fires – Piet van der Merwe, WoF.
Fires grow exponentially after ignition. The quicker you can get to it, the smaller is the fire and the easier it is to put out. – Piet van der Merwe.
We need to figure out how to capacitate FPAs … almost all of them are dependent on private sector funding – Val Charlton, Land Works.
Integrated fire prevention is a leadership problem more than a funding problem … there is an absence of political leadership and support – Etienne du Toit, Western Cape Government
Fuel load influences all the pillars of your fire management strategy – Deon Greyling, Mondi.
Big fires change the ecology of a landscape – Dr Rachel Loehman, US Geological Survey.
Pine and fynbos are highly flammable and fire prone – Dr Annelise Schutte-Vlok, Cape Nature.
Fire frequency is lower in small and medium grower plantations – Jeffrey le Roux, Sappi.
Everything that happens on the surface of the earth affects the groundwater, which provides 30% of the world’s fresh water. All pollution percolates down into the groundwater. So wildfires and groundwater are intimately linked – Dr Jo Barnes.
The ‘bakkie sakkie’ is the basic equipment that helps foresters keep wildfires out of their plantations.Rehabilitation work on the go to prevent soil erosion near Knysna after the 2017 inferno.Stihl knapsacks, blowers and chainsaws on display at the symposium.Timber salvaged by PG Bison after the 2017 Knysna fires is stacked in a massive wet deck that at its height was 3 km long, 24 metres wide and 4.5 metres high. (Photo courtesy Roger Parsons and Ritchie Morris)Fighting fires is dangerous work … you need the right gear.Tiaan Pool, Head of the Forestry, Wood Technology and Veldfire Management Department at Nelson Mandela University, is the driving force behind the Fire Symposiums held at the NMU George campus.
‘Preparing for the next Mega Fire Event’ is the focus of the upcoming Fire Management Symposium being hosted by the School of Natural Resources Management at the Nelson Mandela University’s George campus from 23-25th November 2022.
This event is designed to bring together the experiences and insights of natural resource managers, engineers, fire managers and scientists through an integrated approach that recognises the contributions of different role players in the mammoth task of preventing the occurrence of destructive wildfires, such as the one that devastated the southern Cape region in June 2017.
The Symposium will include two days of presentations from fire experts in different disciplines, and a field day hosted by the Southern Cape Fire Protection Association to visit pristine fynbos areas and learn about their unique fire ecology.
Internationally renowned fire scientist Prof Pete Fule from the School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University, will deliver the first keynote address and will be supported by local fire specialists such as Pieter van der Merwe. The programme includes presentations by experts from CSIR, SANParks, Montigny Investments, Sappi, Working on Fire, Mondi and Cape Nature.
There will be plenty of opportunities for delegates to network with fire management experts, presenters and stakeholders, and a gala dinner to close off.
For more info contact:-
Tiaan Pool, HoD Forestry Department at NMU; tiaanp@mandela.ac.za. Mobile: 072 374 2347. Sonia Roets - sonia.roets@mandela.ac.za 044-8015091.
The first salvaged timber arrived in August 2017 and the wet-deck would grow to 3 km at its peak. The stack was 4.5 m high and 24 m wide.
by Roger Parsons and Ritchie Morris A devasting fire started on 7th June 2017 and swept through Sedgefield, Knysna and Plettenberg Bay, leaving a path of destruction in its wake until it could be contained four days later. Seven people lost their lives, more than 1 000 homes were lost or severely damaged and some 15 000 ha of commercial forestry was lost or damaged. Damage amounted to billions of Rands and the entire community had to rise up and build their lives again.
PG Bison was just one of many businesses that had to implement a rehabilitation strategy so that they, their people and those who depend on them for their livelihoods, could survive. As some of the damaged timber could still be harvested, they set about salvaging what they could. However, local sawmills could not cope with the sudden influx of timber to be processed, remembering that the Longmore Sawmill was also lost in the fire. To counter this, PG Bison set up a wet-deck on their Ruigtevlei property east of Sedgefield.
Wet-deck entails packing the logs in stacks 4.5 m high and 24 m wide and continually spraying the timber with water. The continuous wetting of the logs creates a shortage of oxygen in the wood, preventing fungi and fauna from entering and damaging the timber. If done within 10 months of the fire, the timber could be preserved until it could be processed. At its peak the wet-deck would extend for 3 km and need 4.5 ML/d of water for the irrigation.
The drilling of 8 production boreholes was completed by September 2017, ensuring that the wet-deck operation could begin when the first timber arrived. Two drilling rigs were used – a small reverse-circulation mud rotary rig to drill into the shallow primary aquifer and a larger rotary percussion rig to drill down into the TMG aquifer.
PG Bison appointed Morris Environmental & Groundwater Alliance (MEGA) to develop a wellfield on their property to provide the required water. The prospects of meeting the demand were considered good given the groundwater supplies developed to the west for Sedgefield and the fact that the PG Bison property overlay Table Mountain Group (TMG) geology, known elsewhere as a productive aquifer system.
Ritchie Morris of MEGA quickly put together an experienced team of hydrogeologists and contractors to tackle the project, knowing that the clock was ticking to preserve the timber. A detailed geophysical study was undertaken to support the siting of eight production boreholes. Two dedicated monitoring boreholes were also installed, while a backup borehole was later drilled in 2019. Five of the boreholes targeted the shallow primary aquifer, while three were drilled to depths of around 100 m in search of the TMG aquifers.
In spite of limitations imposed by the diameter of casing available at the time, the boreholes were all high yielding. Scientific testing of the boreholes confirmed that collectively they could meet the estimated peak demand.
Borehole casing installation.
Just three months after the fire the Fairview Wellfield was brought into production as the first timber started to arrive. Initially, abstraction was limited, but commenced in earnest in early 2018 and steadily grew as the size of the wet-deck increased. Abstraction reached a peak of around 5 ML/d in June 2019, but has since declined as the size of the wet-decks reduced.
As of July 2021 abstraction has been negligible. Monitoring during production included the volume of groundwater abstracted and groundwater levels in the production and monitoring boreholes. A Water Use License was sought and granted by the Department of Water and Sanitation and the Breede Gouritz Catchment Management Authority.
Testing the yield of the aquifer.
Concern had been expressed by some local residents about the impact of the abstraction from the Fairview Wellfield on Groenvlei, in particular as a result of observed low water levels in the wetland. Groenvlei is a unique wetland 700 m south of the wellfield. It is only fed by rainfall and groundwater inflow, and has no influent rivers.
This concern prompted a review of available data by Dr Roger Parsons who was awarded a Ph.D in 2014 for his research into the groundwater contribution to Groenvlei. Monitoring borehole RV12 had been positioned between the Fairview Wellfield and Groenvlei for the express purpose of detecting and quantifying potential impacts. Comparing the water level data of Groenvlei monitored by the Department of Water and Sanitation to that monitored in RV12 showed that the hydraulic gradient between RV12 and the wetland remained (nearly) constant during the five year observation period. The implication of this is that the volume of groundwater discharged into Groenvlei would remain stable under these conditions. This assessment was supported by a lack of correlation between the period of pumping, the drawdown induced in the production boreholes and the water levels observed in RV12 and Groenvlei.
Water level graph 1:Relation between the water level in Groenvlei and that monitored in borehole RV 12 located 250 m north of the wetland, but 650 m south of the nearest production borehole. Total abstraction from the Fairview Wellfield is also shown.
By contrast, a strong correlation was observed between rainfall and the water level of the wetland. It was observed that the current drop in wetland started at the same time as the onset of drought in October 2015. A similar pattern of decline was observed during the drought experienced in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Applying the cumulative rainfall departure method – a statistical procedure introduced more than 70 years ago and used in groundwater recharge studies – shows that from October 2013, the level in Groenvlei rose in response to above average rainfall, but then started to fall in October 2015. The good rains of January 2020 only temporarily interrupted the declining trend of the water level. Slightly more rain in late 2021 and March 2022 accounted for the recent upward trend.
Water level graph 2: A plot of the cumulative departure of rainfall from mean compared to the water level in Groenvlei and borehole RV12. Wetter conditions are experienced when the red line is above 0 (on the right-hand axis). Drought is apparent as of October 2015, coinciding with the declining water levels.
The observed relationship between the water level of Groenvlei and rainfall was expected given that rainfall accounts for 72% of the input into the system. While the wetland is recognised as a groundwater dependant ecosystem, groundwater is by far the lesser of the two hydrological drivers. Even so, monitoring the response of the aquifer to pumping from the Fairview Wellfield showed that the groundwater inflow into the wetland remained constant, during and after the wet-deck operation.
A positive outcome of this work was the additional knowledge gained about the groundwater resources of the area. Monitoring has shown groundwater was used within sustainable limits and that this provides an opportunity to further explore and develop groundwater supplies for either Sedgefield, Buffels Bay and even Knysna or for agricultural business purposes. However, exploration and use of what has been called the Garden Route Aquifer must be based on sound hydrogeological practice and management.
Ritchie Morris
Dr Roger Parsons
About the Authors Ritchie Morris of Morris Environmental & Groundwater Alliance (MEGA) and Dr Roger Parsons of Parsons & Associates Specialist Groundwater Consults are professional hydrogeologists and registered Professional Natural Scientists. Ritchie was responsible for developing and monitoring the Fairview Wellfield while Roger has a long-standing interest in the hydrogeology of the area and the role of groundwater in sustaining Groenvlei. They wrote this article in their personal capacities. In doing so, they acknowledge the positive contribution of PG Bison, their commitment to ‘doing it right’ and permission to use their data in preparing this article.
