Fire clouds are coming over from a mountain fire that is 60km away.
The news is that we had 632 fires in different areas during the past 7 days.
Crazy, isn't it? This is what happens when everything gets dry under the hot African sun, and gale force winds are blowing. We lost thousands of acres of land last year, and it seems that this year we might lose even more. Damages to structures occurred, many animals were killed, and thankfully there was no loss of life. My wife has an excellent sense of smell, and I believed her when she said that she smells fire. All that I could see was blue sky.
There is a difference of smell between a bush fire and a barbeque fire, and she was convinced that the smell was a bush wildfire. So, we decided to go and investigate, as we did not want to get trapped in a wildfire. We travelled to a local community park, as it has wide open fields and one can see the horizons all the way round. And oh yes, there it was at the south-eastern side.
Let me show you what we saw.
There was a fire cloud at the far end of our mountain range.
A closer look, and I knew that the clouds were coming from behind the mountains.
The fire cloud spread towards the west over the mountain foothills.
And here you can see them at the southern end.
A bit later, at sunset time, we travelled to another spot.
A tree pointed a finger at the fire cloud.
Yep! Things started to color, and one could see the clouds clearly.
Travelling towards the eastern side of the cape mountains.
A closer look at the shot above.
And there was the seafront with the hot colors of the setting sun, and the fire cloud.
We googled the fire, and there is much to say about it, but I didn't want to cite any of the news, as in my mind one is only allowed to cite articles from Wikipedia, but you are free to google "current fires in the Western Cape". We saw some fire trucks with their sirens screaming on their way to the fire, and as I said, it is 60km away from us. The mountains on that side have very dense growth and deep inaccessible valleys, which makes it so much more difficult for the firefighters to get to it.
But thankfully we have some expert and experienced guys, and they also have air support by choppers dropping big bags of water from the air on to the flames. Problem is, at nighttime they cannot fly and if the weather conditions are bad, such as wind gusts that suddenly appear then they can also not fly. A wind gust of 50-60 kph will be sure to flip a helicopter with a bag of water hanging below it. But all praises to the brave fire fighters, as they struggle against the odds and they beat them every time.
Such is life.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.
Photos by Zac Smith. All-Rights-Reserved.
Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.
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