Firefighters battle runaway Overstand fires

A 71 year old man is in a serious condition in hospital as a result of the fires which are burning at Franskraal and Hermanus, in the Overstrand. More than 30 residential properties have been destroyed in the fire. Another 30 properties sustained partial to major damage.

Nearly 13 000 hectares of vegetation has been destroyed in the fire.

Overstrand Municipality Fire Chief, Lester Smith, says fire fighters are still battling to bring the blaze under control.

“We also have ground crews on that lines, and we are going to put in more ground crews throughout the day. Currently a total of 226 fire crews on scene as well as 52 vehicles on scene. We also activated our disaster risk management section so currently any food, cool drinks or sweets for our personnel we will appreciate it and fire fighting will continue throughout the day so anything that they can bring to the fire station we will appreciate.”

Firefighters are also struggling to contain wildfires in Franskraal in the Overstrand.

“Runaway fires are terrible at this stage, its threatening the village but luckily we do have air support, two helicopters booming the fires but we already arranged for the last three hours that people must evacuate their properties, it is alarming but we trying our level best to put the fire out,” Kat Myburgh who is the Regional Manager.

Cape Town Fire and Rescue spokesperson Theo Layne says the fire has destroyed nearly 13-thousand-hectares of vegetation so far.

“We have three extensive fires within the Overstrand municipal area. The first fire is within Franskraal. We have two helicopters assisting and vehicles from the Overstrand. We also have a fire spreading towards Hermanus. Currently, we evacuated two sections of Hermanus. We have another fire in Betty’s Bay,” explains Layne

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