KZN ready to tackle fire season

The Department of Environmental Affairs’ funded programme Working on Fire (WoF) officially launched the 2015 fire season in Howick last week.

WoF partnered with Fire Protection Association (FPA) and the Provincial Disaster Management Centre (PDMC) with the purpose of the event to create awareness around veld and forest fires in KZN to show the province how ready they are for the winter fire season.

WoF KZN general manager Carl van Loggerenberg said they need to ensure every part of KZN that is prone to runaway veld fires, are managed in terms of the provisions of the national veld and forest fire act.

“This clearly spells out the requirements and responsibilities of landowners with regard to fire management on their properties. It will be our key task to get this message out to particularly our deep rural communities and landowners,” said van Loggerenberg

In preparation for this year’s fire season all WoF 31 KZN teams have been topped up and are at full strength.

Working on Fire is preparing communities for the winter season, they are running fire awareness programmes in schools and communities across KZN making use of fire fighters, as professionals who fight fire first-hand.

“Between February and April this year in partnership with Disaster Management Centres we held 28 fire safety workshops and presentations, had 14 door to door campaigns and reached 99 schools,” said van Loggerenberg.

In total WoF was able to speak to 30 000 people across KZN about being fire safe.

The chairperson of the KZN FPA Bobby Hoole said the province has experienced very dry regions and a number of districts have been declared disaster areas in terms of the drought.

“We encourage farmers to put in adequate preparation and take all precautions at all times,” said Hoole.