21 September 2023
By: Alani Janeke
Very windy conditions are expected over almost all of South Africa from tomorrow. A frontal system is moving over the country, creating dangerous to extremely dangerous fire conditions.
A frontal system that has brought rain and cold to parts of the Western Cape today is expected to move over South Africa from tomorrow, creating dangerous conditions for veld fires.
“A very windy weekend is predicted for almost the entire country, but the strongest winds will blow over the central part,” says Johan van den Berg, an independent agricultural meteorologist.
“This includes the Free State, the Eastern Cape, the eastern part of the Northern Cape, North West, and even parts of KwaZulu-Natal where wind speeds and gusts of up to 60 km/h or more can occur
“These conditions are typical of the beginning of the summer rainy season, especially in a year with an El Niño system.”
<caption> The white stripes inside the circle on this map from Windy indicate where strong winds are predicted this weekend. Provided by Johan van den Berg
In the meantime, the Free State Umbrella Association for Fire Fighting has issued a warning of dangerous to extremely dangerous fire conditions from Friday to Monday.
According to the warning, extremely dangerous conditions prevail over the central, western, and southern parts of the province, and dangerous conditions over the central and eastern parts.
The association urges members of the public not to make open fires during the windy conditions, as well as not to do anything that could lead to fires. Members of fire associations are encouraged to ensure their firefighting equipment is on hand and ready.
<caption> The Free State Umbrella Association for Fire Fighting’s warning. Photo: Provided
Johann (Savage) Breytenbach, CEO of the association, says strong winds due to a cold front regularly lead to disastrous fires. “These fires usually don’t burn widely but for many kilometres in succession because the wind is so strong that it ignites the fire on its left flank or northern side and then turns west again. This wind usually blows north, then northwest, then west, and then turns south.”
Breytenbach says so far, 309,180ha have burned due to 4,693 fires from May 1 to September 10 in the Free State. A total of 1,057 of these fires were on agricultural land, while 571 occurred on land in towns or cities bordering farms or open land. The largest fire so far occurred at Brandfort last month, when 25,047ha burned.
“Although the area burned due to veld fires so far still falls within the average figures of a normal fire season, it is worrying that of the total 309,180ha that have burned, 246,326ha or 79% burned in the 40 days from July 31 to September 10,” says Breytenbach.
