Massive fire unites community in fight

Date: 14 December 2023 By: Andries van Zyl

Unbeknownst to many, large parts of the western Soutpansberg faced the danger of being destroyed completely by a fire sparked by a lightning strike. The fire raged on for almost two weeks, starting at the end of November and burning well into the first week of December.

“It was more than a week of firefighting. Back and back again. Every time we fought it and thought it was extinguished, it would start up again!” said Catherine Vise of the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and programme manager of the EWT’s Soutpansberg Protected Area programme.

Following the lightning strike, the fire originally crept alongside the southern slopes of the Soutpansberg in areas where fighting it was impossible. The drama escalated when the fire eventually made its way onto the Soutpansberg summit at the Happy Rest Nature Reserve (a Limpopo Economic Development, Environment and Tourism property), endangering neighbouring farms and infrastructure, including that of the Schoemansdal Environmental Education Centre. Teams fought tirelessly, day and night, to do back-burns to prevent the fire from burning completely out of control.

“A lot of people got involved to protect the infrastructure at Happy Rest and neighbouring farms. Our guys, the EWT rangers, were heavily involved and coordinated everyone coming in to assist,” said Vise.

Overall, Vise said, this was a significant community effort. “We had the Farm Watch coming in, as well as landowners from Bluegumspoort and the Western Soutpansberg. It was a huge collaborative effort to get the fires under control,” said Vise.

At one stage, a map indicating the fires in the area looked as if the whole Soutpansberg summit was completely ablaze. “This is such a nice success story of community spirit. In the end, we did manage to protect all the infrastructure on three of the properties affected by the fire,” said Vise.

Vise thanked all who were involved in fighting the fire. She was especially proud of the EWT rangers, who went out of their way to protect the Soutpansberg mountain range.

“We are very grateful to everyone that got involved,” said Vise. She thanked every individual who did their part, including rangers who came all the way from the Blouberg Nature Reserve. The Medike team was led by Medike Reserve manager Darren Pieterson and Soutpansberg Protected Area ranger Tharollo Mthisi. Other individuals needing special mention were Adele Jackel, Leon Barnard, Wouter Meintjies, Johan van Wyk, and the landowners from Bahiti and Kremetart who came from the northern side to help.

Vise was also very grateful for the prediction of rain over large parts of the Soutpansberg immediately following the massive fire, rain that finally started falling over the weekend. This resulted in the fire season officially being declared over on Monday. Although burning permits are no longer required by landowners, they were reminded that controlled burning is only allowed Monday to Thursday, with no burning on public holidays or weekends.

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Andries van Zyl

Andries joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in April 1993 as a darkroom assistant. Within a couple of months he moved over to the production side of the newspaper and eventually doubled as a reporter. In 1995 he left the newspaper group and travelled overseas for a couple of months. In 1996, Andries rejoined the Zoutpansberger as a reporter. In August 2002, he was appointed as News Editor of the Zoutpansberger, a position he holds until today.

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