5 September 2023
By: Vida Booysen
Up to 90% of fires in the Free State are caused by human negligence, says Johann Breytenbach, general manager of the Free State Umbrella Fire Protection Association.
“Human negligence can take various forms, for example, when a truck on the N1 highway has a wheel bearing seize and it causes sparks that ignite the field. Then we can say it was negligent not to maintain the wheel bearing,” says Breytenbach.
But farmers must be accountable for proper preventive measures against veld fires, and he once again called on farmers to ensure they create adequate firebreaks, as required by the National Veld and Forest Fire Act (Act 101 of 1998, also known as the Fire Act).
“If that fire comes and you are not prepared, you can lose your entire farm within minutes. It doesn’t matter if there haven’t been fires in your area for years; you only need one fire in a lifetime to lose everything. Plan for the disaster.”
Breytenbach emphasises that firebreaks not only prevent the spread of fires but also serve as access routes, escape routes, anchor points and control lines from where backfires can be started.
“Also, make sure there is a fire strategy in your area. If it’s not in place, farmers will suffer damage.”
Breytenbach says that in his home district in the south-eastern Free State, farmers have created 126km of strategic firebreaks along the roads, each 15-20m wide.
“They also know that it creates the point from which we can start a backfire. Even if the wind is blowing at 80km/h, we can still do it because we have prepared lines. If you don’t have it, you are at the mercy of the fire, and it will do as it pleases with you.”
Five important reasons
Breytenbach highlights five important reasons in which firebreaks can change the outcome of a veld fire.
- Firebreaks should prevent a fire from spreading over them. The width of the firebreak will depend on how significant the fire risk is and whether you need something wider than just a standard firebreak that meets legal requirements. “All precautions you take, however, must be sustainable and feasible. It is obviously not economically sustainable to create up to 100m-wide buffer zones on your farm, but you can still create strategic firebreaks, for example, on the shoulders of the dirt roads.”
- When a fire is approaching you, you light a backfire. But if you don’t have a prepared line – in veld fire terms, a control line from where you can start a controlled fire – you should go to the nearest place you can find, says Breytenbach. “If it’s a road, then I use it. But if the tambuki grass is 3m high along that road and the wind is blowing at 60km/h, I can’t use that line. The fire will go higher than that anyway.”
- You cannot start to fight a fire randomly. You begin to extinguish it at an anchor point, explains Breytenbach. “With large fires, every place where it crosses a firebreak becomes a potential anchor point from where we can begin fire suppression. In this way, you can break up the large fire into geographical areas and extinguish it piece by piece but simultaneously.” In practice, it often happens that the people who come to extinguish the fire go to the back of the fire and spray it dead. However, once the wind reaches 25 km/h or stronger, they won’t catch the fire because its spread is faster than their momentum, especially in thick grass that grows after heavy rain.
- The firebreak provides access to the fire for firefighters. “The field is not flat; it’s a nightmare to drive in, and of course, very dangerous too. The faster I can gain access to the fire by driving along fire roads, the faster and more efficiently I can fight the fire.”
- In cases where the fire suddenly changes direction or where firefighters miscalculate the rate at which it spreads, firebreaks or fire roads also serve as a vital escape route.
