The Overstrand municipality is offering a R5000 reward for anyone with information on who lit a flare in Betty’s Bay leading to a fire in the mountains, according to Netwerk24.

Overstrand municipality’s fire chief, Lester Smith said the flare was let off at midnight on January 1.

It landed in the Kogelberg nature reserve, starting a fire. Forty-five firefighters are currently working to put the blaze out.

Smith said over 250 hectares had already been damaged.

Over Christmas, firefighters were forced to work overtime to get a fire in the mountains near Hermanus under control, reported News24. 

The fire stretched between Karwyderskraal and Afdaksrivier, with a young pine plantation in between.

Conditions made it difficult to bring in a helicopter, so firefighters were on the fireline, preventing flare-ups.

Local government spokesperson James-Brent Styan said firefighters and firemen were battling to put the fire down.

“Our first step now is to put to fire out. There are people who are currently combatting the fire. The area is very dry and conditions are bad,” he said.

Styan added that the Western Cape province is prone to fires and urged people to refrain from making fires as well as having braais outdoors as that could spread the fire.

“We will continue to investigate big fires in our province. Three causes of widespread fires is that the area is very dry, very hot and very windy at this time. Once it has been established that there is foul play and the fire was deliberately caused by a human being, we are going to refer the matter to the police who will investigate,” he said.

(Source: News24)