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FISANTEKRAAL: FIRE AWARENESS AND EDUCATION DAY HELD FOR CHILDREN
Firemen talk fire
Children from Fisantekraal listen to firemen speaking about the dangers of fires. PHOTO: TARRYN-LEIGH SOLOMONS
BRENDEN RUITER @ruitervaniewind
A
lthough the City of Cape Town has announced that the number of fires is down from last year, an organisation operating in Fisantekraal still deemed it necessary to teach children about the dangers of fires. A fire awareness and education day formed part of a broader Greenville Environmental Education (EE) programme running in Fisantekraal. The programme was launched in July 2017 by Garden Cities. Danielle Sterrenberg from Garden Cities says the process of environmental education allows individuals to explore environmental issues, engage in problem solving and take action to improve the environment. “There-
fore the environmental issue we tackled on Saturday was that of fire – whether veld fires (accidental and intentional) or general fires within the community. The goal was to educate the children on the dangers of fires, which include loss of infrastructure and property including livestock, buildings and electricity poles, as well as health concerns like burn wounds and smoke inhalation and, in extreme situations, loss of life,” says Sterrenberg. According to her it was important to do fire awareness in the community due to the recent fires at the Mosselbank River and adjacent open fields, which on some occasions were lit intentionally. “This also gave us the opportunity to acknowledge the children who helped Elizabeth Maans (resident of Greenville) to fight fires in Fisantekraal.
About 100 children joined the event. We approached the City of Cape Town’s Fire and Rescue Service to help us with fire awareness and education, and we are truly grateful that they were able to assist.” According to a City of Cape Town media statement, a drop in the number of wildfires compared to previous years has been noted. “The City of Cape Town’s Fire and Rescue Service is cautiously optimistic about closing out the warmer months with significantly fewer wildfires. The period between November and April usually sees an increase in the number of vegetation fires. For the past three years, Cape Town’s firefighters have been kept on their toes attending to thousands of wildfires, including at least one major incident that spanned several days. There have been no major veld fires this
year (up to the end of February) which has contributed to the drop in the number of incidents. We can’t be certain about the reasons behind the drop, although the mild summer we’ve experienced could be a contributing factor. Whatever the reasons, we definitely welcome it, especially considering that we are in the midst of a drought crisis. The warmer months are a drain on our resources and in recent years we have very often found ourselves in a Code Red situation, meaning that we were one incident away from completely exhausting our available resources. This is the first year since early 2016 that we haven’t reached that critical point,’’ reads the statement, sent out by the office of the City’s Mayco member for safety and security and social services, JP Smith.