Mountain Bush Fires in Cape Town as Firefighting Choppers Cool Karbonkelberg’s Flames

Mountain Bush Fires in Cape Town as Firefighting Choppers Cool Karbonkelberg’s Flames. Today I would like to share with you some pics of Cape Town’s brave airborne firefighters as they put their choppers into action on the rocks next to Sandy Bay beach near Llandudno (the South African one). Huge ravaging Hout Bay bush fires quenched within hours – Karbonkelberg mountain now cooling down.

All in a day's work: Cape Town Chopper Squad putting out fires on the rocks near Sandy Bay Beach — All in a day’s work: Cape Town Chopper Squad putting out fires on the rocks near Sandy Bay Beach

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Yesterday evening’s deep red sunset combined with very dark clouds coming over the Karbonkelberg Mountain from Hout Bay ought to have set alarm bells ringing. I therefore shouldn’t have been surprised this morning as I opened the kitchen blinds to see my side of Karbonkelberg in flames. I live in the sunset rocks part of Llandudno (the Cape Town one) which benefits from gorgeous sunsets with views of the Karbonkelberg mountain on one side and the Twelve Apostles mountain range on the other.

Rear View of 12 Apostles Mountain Range as seen from Llandudno near Cape Town

Just to set the scene here is a view of the Karbonkelberg Mountain (the Sandy Bay beach side) on a normal day. This was taken from my balcony.

Because of the grey smoke clouds I didn’t take a picture of the sun setting yesterday but to illustrate how it looks on a normal day here are a couple of recent pictures.

A 'normal' sunset from Sunset Rocks at Llandudno, near Cape Town - just as the sun hits the ocean — A ‘normal’ sunset from Sunset Rocks at Llandudno, near Cape Town – just as the sun hits the ocean

A 'normal' sunset from Sunset Rocks at Llandudno, near Cape Town - just after the sun ducks behing the clouds on the horizon — A ‘normal’ sunset from Sunset Rocks at Llandudno, near Cape Town – just after the sun ducks behind the clouds on the horizon

Now let’s look at what greeted me when I opened the blinds in my kitchen this morning (all photos are high-definition – just click on them to enlarge and see more detail):

View on 27th Feb 2017 from Chris Duggleby's Llandudno kitchen window. — View on 27th Feb 2017 from Chris Duggleby’s Llandudno kitchen window.

Zoom lens view on 27th Feb 2017 from Chris Duggleby's Llandudno kitchen window. — Zoom lens view on 27th Feb 2017 from Chris Duggleby’s Llandudno kitchen window.

As the sun had not fully risen (it was about 07:00 am) and the wind was still quite strong I also took a couple of pictures from my deck facing the ocean (note to self: next time dress first in case other neighbours are also out with their cameras!).

1. Bush fire on Karbonkelberg near Hout Bay and Llandudno

2. Bush fire 'close-up' on Karbonkelberg near Hout Bay and Llandudno — 2. Bush fire ‘close-up’ on Karbonkelberg near Hout Bay and Llandudno

Fortunately the wind died down after a couple of hours allowing the local Fire Fighting chopper crews to demonstrate how to put mountain fires out when there is a convenient bit of water near by.

Cape Towns Land and Airborn fire fighting crews join at Karbonkelberg to start fighting the bush fires

The guys helping to quench the excitement on the rocks near Sandy Bay beach prove that two choppers are more effective than one

If you haven’t seen this in action before the helicopters have what are in effect giant buckets which open when they drop them into the ocean and fill up with water. They then fly with this ‘quenching’ cargo to the edge of the bush fire and release their load onto the flames to try to stop the fire advancing. The regulars at Cape Town’s famous gay nudist beach (Sandy Bay) will have found it particularly entertaining to see firemen with big choppers dropping their load all over the rocks. I suspect this will be a feature of local gay social media sites for some time to come!

Here are some more detailed pics of the choppers in action:

Cape Town Firefighting chopper gets a load of water from the ocean

Just to the left of this pic are some caves…here is the view on a ‘normal day’ taken from inside the cave looking out at the ocean. Clearly I won’t be going there today!

View from the caves at the base of Karbonkelberg Mountain (the Sandy Bay side)

Chopper drops load of sea water onto the bush fires on Karbonkelberg

Another loads gets discharged onto the mountain

That’s it for today. From the reduction in noise levels I assume the chopper activities have moved to another part of Cape Town (which means ‘siesta time’ for you-know-who).

Don’t forget – please be extra careful whenever you go through dry bush areas. It is very easy to start these fires but as you will see from the report above it is very difficult to put them out. Fortunately in the area featured here there were no properties – you can imagine the terrible tragedy involved when this happens in a populated area.

Chris Duggleby.

The local wildlife tries to join in with the airborne excitement

The following pics were taken 2 days after I prepared this report to show how effective the fire crews had been in halting the bush fires. You can see a clear line of demarcation between the grey burned vegetation and the surviving green area (separating the fires from where I live!).

Karbonkelberg Mountain 2 days after bush fires

Closer view of Karbonkelberg Mountain 2 days after bush fires

Karbonkelberg Mountain as seen from my balcony 2 days after bush fires

Oh and this is how this local scenery looks from the ocean (including the occasional ship wreck). I took this picture standing on the end of the area which was engulfed in flames (obviously a little while earlier!).