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Zuurberg Inn Fire Still Blazing
www.MyAddo.co.za: FIRES in the Eastern Cape are under control although the Zuurberg blaze is still moving across the mountains north of Port Elizabeth.
Anthony Kasinga, provincial manager for the specialist parastatal Working on Fire , said fires in Grahamstown and the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality were under control but defence force helicopters had been 'water-bombing' the Zuurberg flames, which are running along the north-west edge of the Addo Elephant National Park.
"At the moment the wind is okay but the fire is still quite substantial. We are hoping the wind does not change and push the fire deep into the park."
Park spokesperson Megan Taplin said the fire was spreading westward across the Zuurberg, devouring fynbos and grasslands on the remote slopes and tops of the mountains.
"The underlying problem is we have had no rain for four months and it is very dry. We have also been experiencing strong winds, which keep changing direction."
The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, which has been ravaged by fires this week, attended to only three veld fires yesterday, none of them serious.
Municipal spokesperson Lourens Schoeman said the fires were in the Circular Drive/Overbaakens area, Draaifontein at Greenbushes, and a large area at Colleen Glen, where efforts to douse it were hampered by extremely difficult terrain.
Twenty-two families, comprising 100 people, who lost everything when a fire razed their Chris Hani informal settlement homes on Tuesday, are now staying with family or friends after they were initially housed in the Mathew Goniwe hostel, he said.
Meanwhile, the rest of the country remains on high alert for fires .
The Herald, Avusa Group News