Cape Town Fire Pictures

Last night was the second night in a row that Frosty joined the VWS (Volunteer Wildfire Services) team to go and battle the fire that is making it's way through the south peninsula in Cape Town. 

Twice, he's gone from work to the VWS Newlands base ready to be deployed to fight this incredible fire, popping in at home only to get supplies and for a quick nap yesterday afternoon - he got back at 4.30 yesterday morning and at 6.30 this morning. I know that many of the other volunteers do exactly the same - working a full day and then at night giving up their time and efforts to help fight fires.

What Can You Do To Help The Fire Fighters?

Donations of food are coming in fast, but I know that food isn't the only thing that the VWS team are in need of. 

Instead of spending money buying ingredients to make sarmies for these brave fire fighters, why don't you donate that cash to them instead. EFT it or drop off the cash at one of their bases. If you take a browse through their website and Facebook page, you will see that they're requesting:

• donations of money
• gift vouchers for food that they can use in the future
• services (such as people who know how to fix land rovers)

in order to help them buy or fix other necessities that are required for fighting the fire. Yes, the teams get hungry when they're fighting fires (and the people who bring food are the favourites with hungry fire fighters), but if they don't have any money they won't have any equipment (think vehicles, Personal Protective Equipment {PPE}, petrol, fire fighting tools, pen and paper, radio equipment etc) to fight the fire to begin with! 

Also, please remember that the fire fighting crews have gone through special training in order to enable them to fight these fires. So as much as you may want to go and join the teams on the fire, don't. You will endanger yourself and the teams that are already on the mountain. Instead, join up with VWS, go through their training program and then be one of the trained guys fighting a fire next time it happens. There are certain protocols and procedures that need to be followed in order to ensure everyone's safety that you won't know about unless you've been trained.

The night before last I drove through to have dinner with my mum who has been running a course in the same area and I decided that I may as well take my camera with me to snap a few shots on my way to and from dinner. Here they are:

A weather update for March 4th: At about 11:30 this morning, there was a bit of a pitter-patter of rain (and even some thunder!) outside my office in Kenilworth, so hopefully this makes it's way down south to give those fighting the fire a bit of help!