Fire on Devil's Peak

I've been commuting a lot between Sea Point, where I'm staying, and Tokai close to Muizenburg to see my sister and her family. The road there winds around the base of Devil's Peak, the craggy cone to the left of Table Mountian, going past both the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur, one of the big city hospitals. Both are at the base of the mountain.

On Tuesday night as I drove back past the university, there were clusters of cars flashing blue emergency lights on the side of the road, and then suddenly the road lead through a cloud of smoke. When I looked back a little further on, I saw stretches of orange fire light leading up Devil's Peak; a massive veldt-fire had just broken out.

Last night (Wednesday), after a day spent battling the flames, the fire department said the fire was 'contained', but as I drove past at 10pm, bonfire-sized blazes still pockmarked the hillside, some way up the side of the mountain.

There are some spectacular photos of the fire here.


[Later] I took this photograph from Lion's Head in the late afternoon ... most of the one side of Devil's Peak has been scorched by the fire; there was a lot of smoke and a helicopter was still buzzing between the flames and a reservoir in the city. So much for the fire being under control.