Two homes destroyed by veld fire
Fee bearing image – Cape Town – 140717 – Fire destroyed several houses in Bettys Bay in the early hours of this morning. Reporter: Rebecca Walton. Photographer: Armand Hough Fee bearing image – Cape Town – 140717 – Fire destroyed several houses in Bettys Bay in the early hours of this morning. Reporter: Rebecca Walton. Photographer: Armand Hough
Rebecca Jackman
HIGH winds in Betty’s Bay on Wednesday night pushed a veld fire on the mountain towards residents’ homes, destroying two and damaging five more.
Peter Swart, who lives on Lakeside Drive where the fire eventually spread, said it started about 8pm on Wednesday and firefighters worked throughout the night to contain it.
The outside of Swart’s home was badly damaged, with window and door frames having caught alight and melted gutters landed on his balcony. He and his wife were home when a friend phoned and told them to look out their window.
“I looked and the mountain was red,” said Swart.
They didn’t evacuate until the wind pushed the fire towards their house. Swart said they were very stressed and discussed taking what they could to their car when burning cinders flew over their house and set alight the fynbos in the front.
“It burnt our fynbos garden to smithereens,” Swart said, adding that it turned into a “wall of fire”.
Further down his road, he said, an 85-year-old woman was at home and struggling with the smoke. She grabbed her two dogs and made it to her front garden before falling flat on the ground. Another neighbour helped her to his house and she “recovered well”.
Hennie Cilliers lives nearby and was woken at 2.30am by an SMS saying people in the area should consider evacuating their homes. “I drove around to see how serious it really was,” he said, adding that he didn’t consider it to be bad enough to reach his home.
But he stayed out anyway just to be sure and saw firemen fight the flames throughout the night before the fire was eventually doused by the rain that was “a blessing” when it arrived about 8am, 12 hours later. Cilliers said the fynbos in the area, while “beautiful”, combined with the wind caused the fire to spread very fast.
Betty’s Bay fire chief Lester Smith said there had been 24 vehicles on site through the night, but in the morning, four vehicles and 10 firefighters remained “just to ensure” it didn’t flare up again.
They also received assistance from the City of Cape Town and Overberg and Cape Winelands district municipalities.
They had evacuated as a precautionary measure, but at about 8am yesterday morning residents were finally allowed to return home.
He said the second home that was destroyed was a holiday house and the owners had not been home, but had been alerted.
rebecca.jackman@inl.co.za