As Table Mountain National Park carries the costs of expensive firefighting efforts, a community group urges creating ‘broad’ buffer zones to soften the blow of a heavy human footprint.
When Our Burning Planet arrived at the scene of the Table Mountain “Halloween” fire on Sunday morning just before 8am, fire crews were tamping down hotspots still smouldering from the night before.
A nascent plume of smoke could first be seen mushrooming outward above Deer Park late Saturday afternoon. Less than an hour later, a strong south-easterly wind had driven the pall across the Cape Town city bowl, staining the sun an apocalyptic orange. Headlight beams cut across traffic as sirens howled like Halloween ghosts, even though sunset was two hours away. Twenty-four hours later, the pong of purgatory still choked the air.
Fire crews were tamping down hotspots on Sunday morning. (Photo: Don Pinnock)
About 50ha of veld would burn from Deer Park in the east to Higgovale in the west across the mountain’s lower frontal slope. To contain the inferno, it would take 16 firetrucks heaving with up to 6,000l of…
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