By Ragheema Mclean

The City of Cape Town’s Fire and Rescue services have faced the daunting task of battling more than 8000 emergency incidents over the past few months across the city.

Earlier this month, a destructive fire ravaged parts of Philippi displacing hundreds of residents and causing extensive damage to informal structures.

Despite the efforts of fire and rescue services to extinguish the blaze, the City reported the destruction of more than 100 informal structures, leaving over 400 individuals displaced.

Speaking on VOC’s Ramadhan AM on Monday, Spokesperson for the City of Cape Town’s Fire and Rescue Service, Jermaine Carelse highlighted the recent surge in emergency incidents even led to two code reds being activated.

“Since January, we’ve been quite busy with over 8600 emergency incidents, with the bulk being over 4700 vegetation fires,” Carelse stated.

He also noted an increase in fires in informal settlement areas across various districts, resulting in unfortunate loss of life.

“From December up until March, we’ve been inundated with an extraordinary amounts of fire incidents that we have responded too. It was also the first time in a very long time that on two occasions a code red was activated by our Chief fire officer, because of the extent of the fires and the prolonged period some of the incidents went on for. Some for almost 8 days.”

Carelse emphasized the extreme conditions preceding the fires, with dry, windy, and hot weather contributing to their severity.

“When we look at the vegetation fires, before the summer season started, we were alerted to very dry, windy and hot conditions and that was evident when most of these fires broke out.”

“These fires were also exacerbated by strong south eastly winds on many occasions, especially the Simons town fire, Red Hill as well as the Glen Clairn express fire.”

Meanwhile, Carelse also praised the efforts of neighboring municipalities and the dedication of fire service staff, all additional resources and off-duty firefighters that were deployed during the crisis.

Looking ahead to the winter season, where also of people living in informal settlements make use of candles and paraffin lamps to keep warm during the colder days, Carelse also highlighted the importance of fire education.

“As we transition for the winter period, we have more informal settlement fires our fire education teams go out to the various hot-spot areas and educate the people on the dos and don’ts of the fire incidents.”

Residents are urged to familiarize themselves with emergency numbers: 021 480 7700 (cell phone) and 107 (landline).

VOC News

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