Panorama Residents Association helps protect infrastructure by cutting fire breaks

Foresight and preparation can save vital seconds and critical infrastructure.

Members of the Panorama@Work team have been busy with protective maintenance throughout June and early July. With the dangers of controlled fires and spontaneous veld fires ever-present during winter, creating firebreaks between homes and critical infrastructure is paramount. Using Panorama Residents Association (PRA) funds to employ local labourers, several hundred metres of boundary bush have been trimmed.

PRA covers a large section of Weltevreden Park, roughly triangulated between Hendrik Potgieter, Jim Fouché and JG Strydom Roads, as well as bordering streets. From June 11, the machete and weed-whacker-armed men began their work along the greenbelt running from the bottom of Windsurf Street toward 9th Avenue where they cut a five-metre fire break for houses bordering the field.

To ease any unnecessary anxiety around electrical infrastructure, the Panorama@Work team were again busy on July 2. The bushes in the field along Theunis Street near the Panorama substation had begun to creep closer to the top of the wall, and mid-Saturday a clear gap had been created. The results are twofold, as PRA committee member Michael Steyn explained. “Not only does this keep the fire away from properties but it also helps to see what is going on on the other side of the walls.”