It has been a night to remember for the more than a hundred firemen who have been battling a fire since Sunday night. The fire, whose cause is not known, has caused massive damage to the plains in the area of Muizenberg, Hout Bay and Noordhoek and appears to be spreading fast and widely because of the South Easterly wind that has been wrecking havoc in the Western Cape. This has been independently confirmed by the City of Cape Town’s Fire and Rescue Services spokesperson, Theo Layne who said the emergency crews were doing everything in their power to contain the blaze.
The spokesperson for the fire department added that their crew was, at the time, attempting to extinguish the area along Ou Kaapse Weg and that they were evacuating all occupied properties along this street in order to ensure that everybody was safe. She also confirmed that the two major streets in the area had been closed off to traffic, that is, Ou Kaapse Weg and Chapman’s Peak Drive. It appears, from what could be gathered from the fire fighting crew that the fire had spread from the Muizenberg to Elephant’s Eye above the Steenberg Golf Estate.
Information that could be gathered from eye witnesses in the area indicates that the fire has already caused some damage. Those at the scene of the fire indicate that the fire had already razed to the ground at least four private homes while an Old People’s Home had been evacuated as a precautionary measure. However, according to the KFM Surf report, the wind, which had resulted in the stopping of water bombing as helicopters could not stay on course, seemed to be dying down. At the time of going to press, there had not been any casualties reported due to the fire, but as one eye witness said, it is only a matter of time.
Management of a resort in the area, the Tinswalo Atlantic Lodge, have said that they could not confirm or deny rumours that have been circulating in the social media about the hotel having been burnt down to the ground. They have said that they need to independently assess the amount of damage that has been caused by the fire even though they have confirmed that the fire had resulted in the evacuation of both guests and employees to a safer place. This is said to have happened during the early hours of Monday.
