I'm from Tulbagh, Western Cape, South Africa. Tulbagh is a small farming community.
Get Pushed Challenge: I have been doing this challenge on and off...
@skippysue there hasn't been a fire on this range for 6 or 8 years. The natural vegetation (fynbos - pronounced feign boss) needs to burn every so often for the seeds to germinate. As far as I know no buildings have been destroyed but a lot of land, some of it agricultural has been totally destroyed. The wind has picked up today so it's not helping at all towards controlling the fire.
Looks like rather a large fire, the fynbos will grow back soon enough but it's sad for the farmers they lost land and probably crops.
When I was in the Cape last November I was amazed at the huge variety of species that make up fynbos
powerful capture of mountain fire. This year we somehow had more fires than previous years. Just terrible.
Hope it is under control, pity land was destroyed!
What a horrifyingly-spectacular blaze! We Southern Californians know their power! Sadly, here, when it happens, there's always populated area nearby and many suffer by it...though, like fynbos, they tend to rebuild in the same places and take another chance on the beauty of their location!
I seem to remember some other shots you've taken of fires there- it must be scary and at the same time as you said above, sometimes the plants actually benefit from it. I hope they'll be able to get it under control and that everyone stays safe.
@olivetreeann Ann, this fire is now out. No homes were damaged. There is now a massive fire burning around Cape Town, very close to houses. From reports that I have read 5 houses have been damaged. At least one of the helicopter pilots involved in fighting our fire is now water bombing the Cape Town fire. We are hoping for a major drop in the wind and temperature so that they can get that fire under control.
@taffy our fire is out, it burned for 7 days. There's now a huge blaze in Cape Town, the south peninsula is all ablaze. It is threatening built up areas and yesterday around 5 houses were damaged. A large portion of the terrain that is burning is not accessible by vehicles. The fire choppers doing water bombing are spread so thinly. Hopefully the wind will drop and they can get control of it.
Hope everyone is ok.
Stay safe.xx
When I was in the Cape last November I was amazed at the huge variety of species that make up fynbos
Hope it is under control, pity land was destroyed!