The Dark Side

On Saturday afternoon, there was a fire on Signal Hill. I was on standby that afternoon (and feeling quite sorry for myself because that morning my washing machine and sink outlet pipes had backed up onto my floor and I'd had enough wine the night before to give me a headache the next morning with my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth). Anyway, to give a bit of background, I am a volunteer firefighter. I belong to the VWS - the Volunteer Wildfire Services* and every member of that unit has a day job and fights veld fires in their spare time.

Once every three weeks, we need to do a six hour shift at the base on weekend especially when it's a high risk for fires.... like it was on Saturday. Usually nothing happens, and I was pretty tired, having had a late night and also having fun and games in the lucrative world of plumbing (R480 OUCH). So I was happily having a light snooze on one of the bunks when one of may mates called to make plans for that evening. 

I was sleepily chatting to him when he told me there was a fire on the mountain. I thought that he was trying to be funny with that warped sense of humour of his, but as I was telling him togo to hell, I heard my crew leader shout out that there was a fire on Signal Hill and that we were leaving in 2 minutes!!!! 

I grabbed my gear and jumped onto the back of the bakkie. The fire had started on the Bo Kaap side of Signal Hill and was spreading rapidly - the wind was howling along at gale force. We were the first volunteer team to get there at around 16h30 or so, and the Working on Fire guys and the contractors were already there with about 4 trucks pumping water up the mountain. We were dropped near the top and were awaiting radio instructions from the fire boss, just watching the fire blazing out of control.

With the wind howling the way it was, the flames were really high - and with every gust, they were just leaping across from tree top to tree top. It's not ideal when the fire starts to "crown" which is when the fire reaches the tree tops and starts to leap across - it means that it spreads much faster as the tree foliage burns much faster than the tree trunks and vegatation on the ground - particularly when it's been so hot and dry. Also that means that the trees are more likely to fall over - and you don't want to be anywhere in the vicinity when that happens  - that's why they call them widow-makers.

I have never been in a fire where I've seen it jump across the road the way it did - and also when it crowned, there wre some youngish trees that had very dry foliage - the fire just jumped onto the foliage and the trees were engulfed - and two seconds later it had moved on - leaving blackened and smoking bare branches entreating upwards to the smoky sky. It was so quick, and happened with a "whoosh" and then it was gone. It was pretty frightening.

The smoke was another problem - what we were instructed to do by then was that my team of 7 was assigned to a particular area next to where the contractors were trying to hose down the fire and our job was to contain the flames and make sure that they didn't spread beyond the existing line. It was OK to beat out the flames with our beaters and use the rake hoes to push back burning coals, until the wind changed direction and you got a lungful of smoke. I'm sure that most of you have experienced something similar when standing in front of a braai, although this obviously was way more intense. Your eyes stream (even though we have goggles) and your nose runs like crazy (although you have a balaklava that covers your nose and mouth) and for a second or two you just can't see ANYTHING. That is the most dangerous couple of seconds really because the fire could jump towards you, or you could fall if you lost your balance - it can get pretty hairy!

We spent a lot of time clearing trees that had fallen on the road blocking our escape route when suddenly there was a shout and we saw that a spot fire had started behind us in a section of unburned vegetation. At this point, the spot fire was the size of a bonfire. Two minutes later, as we were trying to contain it, it was about 100 sqm.

The noise levels were unbelievable - between the howling wind, and the crakcling whoosh of the fire, there was the occasional ominous crack of a tree about to fall or simply exploding - and all of this was drowned out by the continual thud-thud of the choppers that were dropping water onto the blaze.

Although it was still light and the sky was a cloudless blue, from where we were it had been tinted orange and gray by the glow of the flames lighting up the smoke. Honestly, it looked like something from X Files - and was so beautiful - until you woke up to the fact of how deadly and destructive it all was.

The helicopters also made life quite interesting. They were frantically ferrying loads of water back and forth, dropping them on the fire in attempt to cool the area and douse the flames. This all had to be done before it got dark because the choppers can't fly then. Also they can't come too low as it's next to the mountainside and a sudden gust of wind could slam the chopper into the mountain - which would be disastrous to say the least. The problem is that the water tends to land at least 100m away from where they release it out of the bambi bucket - and about 4 times (at least) that happened to be where I was standing. I was lucky in the sense that they weren't that low, so the water came down like a heavy rain deluge and soaked us rather than knocking us out (which can happen - the bambi bucklet carries 3 500 litres of water).

Still although the heat of the fire is one problem, being soaked by the chopper is NOT the solution to that problem - because that howling wind makes it COLD!!! At one point when it seemed that most of the flames were under control, we tried to warm and dry ourselves by the fire because we had no idea when we were going to get relieved or if we had to spend the night on the mountain. There we were, warming our butts in front of the fire, being careful not to step on any smouldering coals and burn right through the soles of our boots, when I noticed this black stuff bubbling out of the ground.

At first I swear that it was the black oil from X Files - because it was dusk - but then we realised that it was just some plastic litter that was obviously reacting to the superheated ground we were standing on.... The weird thing was that it smelled like chocolate - but I wonder how much of that was due to the fact that at this point we were really hungry!!!

We managed to dry ourselves off - up to a point - I had nearly burned my butt because my pants had started to heat up quite rapidly which has the strange effect of making one dance a jig - and we were walking back to our equipment, when the chopper overhead dumped another load of water - and hit us squarely. Aaargh!!!

At this point it was rapidly getting dark and despite the fire, the temperature was dropping drastically although the wind wasn't. I stripped down to my undershirt to put on something drier - and then wrung out the water from the clothes I was wearing and put them on again - you need all the layers you can get!!!

By now, the choppers had been consigned back to the fire base so we were on our own. Most of the time now we were clearing branches that had fallen across the road, beating out spot fires, examining the fire line to make sure that nothing smouldered out of the burnt area and halping climb up the mountain with hoses to douse the flames at the top.

When it gets dark, it gets harder to see where to walk and the exact nature of the terrain, but it gets easier to see smopuldering coals. Every time the wind gusted, it took embers and sparks and showered them everywhere - very deadly - one of my team mates had more than a few burn spots on his shirts, but so gorgeous - they looked like fire flies. At night, the fire really looked spectacular although by this point the flames were almost out and the fire was really smouldering more than anything else. It's as sight that I'm not likely to forget anytime soon!

Finally around 10pm or so, the fire boss said that our team could leave as we had been on duty from 12 that day (on standby). The other teams that had arrived at 6.30pm or so would stay for another couple of hours and then some of them would stay overnight to make sure that there were no flare ups. By the time I got h ome it was 10.45 and I was pretty exhausted although it's difficult to get to sleep because of all the adrenalin pumping through your system.

The funniest thing was that I was wearing all my clothes because it was so cold on the mountain, and it never occurred to me to take any of them off on my drive home - and so it was that I pulled outside the gate to the complex where I live, complete with balaklave and hard hat with headlamp. (Believe it or not, even the hard hat helps to keep your head warm). I couldn't fathomat first why the security guards were statring at me and frantically talking into their radios and then I caught sight of myself in my side mirror - they must have thought that I was pulling off an armed robbery!!! Once I pulled my balaklava down to my chin they recognised me and let me through - they must have thought I was crazy!!!

It was a relief to get home and have a warm cup of tea and a shower. Afterwards, I was still pumped up from the experience and thought that I would have trouble getting to sleep, but the next thing I knew, I had dropped off in my chair and was battling to get up so I hobbled off to bed.

The next morning I woke up refreshed, although I was a bit annoyed that my sister didn't tell me that I had dried black snot on my face!!!! (It's from all the smoke and your nose streaming - I'm still sneezing the stuff up and pulling it out of the corner of my eyes - charming!). Plus my hair still smelt of braai (it still does this morning too despite 3 washes).

My uniform is now hanging outside my balcony - should be dry now in case there's another fire - and hopefully that doesn't stink either.... I still can't get most of the black marks out even though I used Vanish many times. People, that stuff doesn't work!! (At least not on charcoal and hose stains).

Anyway, it's a hot and windy day - and we've received a warning that it's a high risk day and have told to be available and stay hydrated..... Let's hope it doesn't come to that although it's the greatest amount of fun!

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* VWS - for more information on Volunteer Wildfire Services and what we do, click here.
For more information on how to help or to make a donation, click here.
And for pictures of fires and to see the unit in action (yes, including me!), click here.

(My apologies for not pasting the pics directly into the post, the firewalls here at work don't allow me to and they don't even allow me to view other people's pics on their blogs. It's not like I can complain to my employer because I don't think that they would be sympathetic to my use of their resources!!!)