DENSE, dark clouds of smoke over the City of uMhlathuze this week had residents in an uproar, but forest fire prevention officials say this is necessary to avoid destruction such as recently seen in the Cape.
Facebook and other social media were filled with negative comments from people who battled to breathe and whose wash lines were covered in ash.
And they can prepare for more inconvenience in the weeks to come.
‘We’ve simply got to do it, as a matter of urgency,’ Tony Roberts of the KwaMbonambi-based Zululand Fire Protection Association told the Zululand Observer on Thursday.
‘We have got to get rid of the fuel load before the fire season begins, especially with limited water supplies available for fire-fighting owing to the drought.
‘When compartments of trees have been harvested, small branches, twigs and leaves are left behind on the ground.
‘Unless this is burnt before new trees are planted, this leads to what we term a ‘red fuel load’ situation, where any subsequent fire would be devastating.
‘The fire season generally extends from the start of July to the end of October but we moved it forward to the beginning of April given the prevailing conditions.
‘The controlled fires only take place after looking at weather and constant wind predictions, and we do try to burn when the smoke will be carried away from residential areas. Unfortunately, on a windless day when there is an inverse layer of cool air above the ground, the smoke hovers; it is trapped and cannot disperse.
‘We also liaise with fire fighting authorities and the Richards Bay Clean Air Association.’
Roberts said there were few examples of death or damage to animals and small mammals in the fire areas as they had evolved to cope with fires.
As many as 40 people are directly involved in the burning process, commanding fire trucks and bakkies.
‘Tornado’ phenomenon explained
LOCALS were amazed to see – or view the photo of – a huge ‘tornado’ that stretched from ground level to the smoke cloud layer on Thursday.
Some speculated that this was ‘a sign of the times’ – perhaps even that ‘the end is near’.
However, fire expert Tony Roberts said this was a common phenomenon at blaze scenes.
‘There is obviously intense heat from the fire at ground level and on a cool day, such as on Thursday, the temperature difference causes air current movements.
‘We call these ‘fire whirls’, and they can reach spectacular heights and sizes.
‘They are also extremely dangerous, as they can carry embers and even the fire itself across roads and into other areas.
‘If you do a Google search, you will see that sometimes an entire tongue of flames rises hundreds of metres into the air – a quite amazing sight.’
