VIDEO: Reflecting on Zululand’s fire season

AT the Zululand Fire Protection Association’s (ZFPA) AGM, the chairman reflected on last year’s fire season and gave his thoughts on the up-coming season.

The region is experiencing its worst drought over the last 50 years with 130mm being measured compared to an average of 508mm for the first three months of the year.

Last year there were eight ‘red alert’ days and 37 ‘orange’ days.

The Zululand Fire Protection Officer, Tony Roberts reported that the area of the ZFPA is now standing at 320 000ha with most of the growth in northern Zululand.

Agricultural crops are diverse with timber, sugar, game, cattle, pineapples, sawmills, factories, mines, Eskom and Transnet.

The awareness campaigns at schools saw 5 220 pupils being visited as well as 1 200 community members and 182 honey hunters being addressed.

Deliberate setting of fires is still the leading causes of fires with 277 of the 615 fires being attributed to this cause.

Honey hunters still contribute to 147 fires, while neighbours are responsible for 65 fires.

Surprising only 791ha were burnt last year thanks to the speedy response to wild fires.

Timber losses were 1 400 tons of timber which was felled, stacked timber 8 010 tons and slash 90 tons.

Cane lost 45ha, while indigenous and conservation areas lost 71 ha and 498ha respectively.

An impressive average time of 17 minutes call to drop was achieved and the air support costs were R5.6-million.

The total cost of fires to the industry was R86-million last year.