Smoke on the mountains, choppers in the sky.
Always a fearsome sight, especially by the farmers, as their farms could go up in smoke.
Imagine if you spent your lifetime on your farm slogging and working hard every day and a fire can destroy it all in a matter of minutes.
As we left the house this morning, we saw a heat glaze on the mountain range and we thought that it was going to be one of those very hot days.
It was not to be, as the glaze was in fact heat and smoke from a fire behind the mountains. We do not have the details yet, But I know that there are many farms behind the mountain and also many farms on our side of the mountain. Thankfully the wind was blowing towards the mountains and not in our direction, but that did not stop the fire from trying to creep over the mountain on our side.
See the haze? This is what it looked like when we left this morning.
I drove out to my favorite spot to look for the fire. Can you see anything at the right hand side of the mountains?
Can you see it now? The fire was creeping over the mountain in a valley towards our side.
Here below is a closer look.
At the right is the fire coming over the mountain and at the left is the white building that is the wine cellars on a farm.
But luckily the fire creep was stopped by the heroes in the next picture.
Running far off with a bucket of water to douse the fire.
And here coming in for a re-fill of water in the bucket.
Then swooping around to go and have another water drop.
My time was up as we had a meeting to attend to, but you can still see the hazy smoke on this mountain, as we drove past for the meeting.
I cannot tell you how much I adore the "Working on fire" teams. They are all well trained and experienced fire fighters, and it takes a sackful of bravery to stand at the face of a bush fire flame that rises 20 meters up in the air.
Later on we heard that they were indeed fighting 3 different fires in the mountains today. The heat of summer and the strong winds are very conducive to starting fires and thankfully working on fire have their own light fire spotter plane up doing patrols over the landscapes every day.
These guys are so good that they have even been sent out to other countries to help when they have big fires.
Thanks to them we are safe this side of the mountains and we hope and pray that the fire on the other side was on the mountains and not on the farms.
You can read more about working on fire in the link below.
Source
And That's All Friends.
Photos by Zac Smith-All Rights Reserved,
Camera: Canon Powershot SX70HS Bridge camera.
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This is such a heart-wrenching catastrophic phenomenon. I hope and pray that no lives are taken by this fire. Thanks to the good hearted people who willingly extended their great act of humanity and help. 🙏🙏🙏
Always terrible to see, but we have many fires over here every year and the firemen are all experts in the art of controlling the fires. Thankfully no lives are lost thus far and thank you for the prayers.
!PIZZA
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It's a pity that you have to deal with fire so often in your country dear @papilloncharity.
Thank you and we have very special plants over here that depend upon the fires for continued growth. Mind you not fires every year, as the scientists reckon a fire every 5 years. But those are controlled fires and it's the wild fires that we worry about.
Oh yes, we are happy to have the firefighters around, as things would be worse without them around.
!PIZZA
That's very curious, that thing about trees needing fire. You definitely learn something new every day.
We normally have fire seasons and late summer is one of them, as the grass start to dry, the African sun is very hot and strong winds arise. A tinderbox for fires.
They are not actually trees, but rather special "Protea bushes" and "Fynbos bushes" that only grow in this part of the world. When they burn, the ground is replenished. Sort of an automatic fertilizing of the ground so that they can continue to grow after the fire.
Thank you for the appreciation of my efforts.
!PIZZA
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One tends to forget the Cape has dry Summers, fires caught by strong winds wipe out much, yet also do good for some plant life.
Nice photography share, did not know about the fires flaring up once again obviously not newsworthy enough with all the flooding up in Limpopo region.
!BEER
I just explained elsewhere that the protea bushes and the fynbos would not last if they had no fires occasionally. Controlled fires mind you and it's always the wild fires that create the damages.
The wind direction has changed overnight and now it is blowing from behind the mountains into our area.
Definitely not a pleasant sight and the wind is too strong for the choppers to do their work.
!BEER
Cloud draped over the mountain looks good, knowing it is fire related not so good.
Drakensberg mountains also do controlled burning for the new grasses with certain plants that require burning to sustain the land.
Sounds like we in for more rains coming down the East of Africa the flooding inland is not over, possibility of it reaching us tomorrow is highly likely.
I love to take photos of the clouds draped over the mountains and they were still struggling with that fire today.
Yes, I saw the fire breaks in the Berg, but in our case arsonists simply walk ove the fire breaks and set the grass alight on the other side. We hear on the radio today that some night cameras show how a guy walks up to a small bush to set it alight. I often wonder about the state of a peson's mind when they start a fire. Do they consider the suffering of animals and also people that might persish in the fire?
As if you guys haven't had enough rain and I was so surprised to see the flooding in the Kruger National Park.
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Fire is such a scary thing to behold. Thanks go to the well trained fire crews for battling these life threatening blazes. Hopefully all the farms will be spared and no lives lost. Be safe!
Scary indeed, and especially if the fires are driven by heat and strong winds. The sparks are the problem, as they can land miles ahead of the actual fire driven by the winds and then more fires can flare up.
We can only hope my friend and the slow small animals are also a worry.
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I have a firefighter friend, he likes what he does so much, he feels good when the alarm goes off because he knows he's going to make a difference in the life of a stranger...
Good and it seems that you have a great friend, as in my mind the firefighters are real heroes and many lives of people and animals have been and still will be saved by them.
!PIZZA