Fire protection bodies a must
MIDRAND - The province is urging Midrand communities to establish fire protection associations.
This comes after a veld fire destroyed a cottage in President Park on 20 August, as reported in Fire destroys cottage, week ending 30 August.
Provincial communications officer for the programme Working on Fire Parapara Makgahlela explained, “[The] National Veld and Forest Fire Act of 1998 recognises the need for communities to establish fire protection associations and promotes that all land owners, where there is a high and fairly uniform risk of veld fires and where that risk justifies the costs of organising and maintaining the fire protection association, organise themselves into a forum which can become a registered fire protection,” said Makgahlela.
He said disaster management centres of the City of Johannesburg would help them to set these up.
He emphasised the open plots of Midrand and Kyalami constituted high risk areas, especially in the high risk weather conditions from 1 August to 31 October. In August alone, Working on Fire teams fought 80 veld fires in Gauteng.
The associations would be able to establish a partnership with the government-funded Working on Fire programme, which would enable data of veld fires to be captured by the province.
Working on Fire is a skills development programme that focuses on integrated fire management in South Africa and is one of the extended public works programmes for poverty alleviation. The programme, which has been running for a decade, recruits and trains people from marginalised communities.
Makgahlela said, “They are professionally trained as veld and forest firefighters. These young men and women form veld and forest firefighting ground crews, stationed at the base around the province to help stop the scourge of wildfires which costs the South African economy billions of rand annually.”
Makgahlela said Working on Fire had an integrated fire management system to prevent, protect and educate communities on the risk of veld fires.
The programme conducts fire awareness campaigns, slashes grass, performs controlled burns and if a fire is reported, performs initial attacks.
He warned that veld fires could be started in a range of ways, from human negligence, such as throwing burning cigarettes in dry grass or leaving a fire unattended, to natural fires, such as those sparked by lightning.
