Daily Maverick
Dailymaverick logo

South Africa

South Africa, Our Burning Planet

Table Mountain inferno ‘largely contained’ on day 3 after surging towards City Bowl

Table Mountain inferno ‘largely contained’ on day 3 after surging towards City Bowl
Ariel fire fighters during the fire at Table Mountain National Park on February 23, 2025 in Cape Town, South Africa. It is reported that SANParks has deployed more than 50 ground firefighters and aerial resources to combat an active fire in the Newlands area of Table Mountain National Park above Kirstenbosch. (Photo: Gallo Images / Ashley Vlotman)
Kristin Engel
By Kristin Engel
26 Feb 2025
Facebook
2
Firefighters were battling a relentless fire in Table Mountain National Park, which started making its way towards the Cape Town CBD on Tuesday night. No evacuations were ordered as aerial and ground crews worked to contain the blaze, with several trails, roads and the cableway closed.

Edward Bosch, the city’s Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson, said: “The fire on Table Mountain is largely contained at this point. However, we are cognisant that a change in weather conditions may influence the situation. 

“City of Cape Town Fire and Rescue resources as well as WoF crews, National Parks and Volunteer Wildfire Services are attending to active flare-ups and are keeping the perimeter secured. 

“Four helicopters are still water bombing the fire line overhead while ground crews are mopping up.

“No property damage or injuries have been reported.”

After igniting in the early hours of Sunday and relentless firefighting and fire suppression efforts, firefighters were still battling the worsening wildfire in Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) on Wednesday morning, which threatened Tafelberg and Vredehoek.

Throughout Tuesday night, when the fires worsened significantly, residents had a restless night, fearing that the flames were inching closer down the mountain to residential properties. But SANParks confirmed that no evacuations had been ordered and the fire was not endangering residential properties at this stage.

At dawn on Wednesday all available aerial resources were deployed to the City Bowl and Red Hill as a priority.

Bosch confirmed that the fire had made its way over the mountain saddle towards the Cape Town CBD on Tuesday night. 

There were two active divisions where firefighting strategies and resources had been focused – “two helicopters have been water-bombing since first light on the flanks of the Tafelberg Road side”.

A third helicopter was en route from Stellenbosch to help in the CBD.

SANParks spokesperson JP Louw said the Newlands Ravine fire spread towards Tafelberg Road and Vredehoek due to a change in wind conditions and strong gusting winds overnight. The wind conditions have been a major factor in the spread of the blaze.

On Tuesday, the Newlands Ravine fire was largely inaccessible to ground crews. This led to all trails in Newlands, Devil’s Peak and Maclear’s Beacon remaining closed until further notice as the rockfalls and fire damage to boardwalks have rendered these unsafe for hikers.

Louw advised that ground crews and aerial resources were diverted on Tuesday to help contain a separate fire in Red Hill, together with the City of Cape Town Fire and Rescue Service and additional aerial resources deployed from Stellenbosch Airfield.

The big concern on Tuesday night was the wind forecast, which Louw said could significantly affect the Red Hill-to-Da Gama Park section of TMNP. 

But on Wednesday, all available resources from the TMNP fire management team, NCC Wildfires, Volunteer Wildfire Services, Working on Fire, Provincial Disaster Management, Enviro Wildfire Services and Fire and Rescue Service were diverted to various sections along Tafelberg Road, Red Hill and its surrounding areas to contain the fire.

Selma Hercules, executive director for the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company, advised: “Due to smoke in and around the area, the fire department has closed Tafelberg Road. As a result, the Table Mountain Cableway is not operational today until further notice.”

The fire in Red Hill was still raging, with firefighting ongoing as it burned south of Ocean View towards Kommetjie on Wednesday morning.

Louw said that despite warnings to avoid the affected areas and the closure of various trails, hikers were continually found in these areas that have been closed off due to fire damage and active fire operations. 

“We urge the public to strictly adhere to all trail closures for their safety,” he said. 

SANParks has closed a number of trails, including: 


  • Front Table trails: From Platteklip Gorge to Newlands, including Maclear’s Beacon;

  • Tafelberg Road closed to the public;

  • ⁠Kirstenbosch and Rhodes Memorial Estate: Active fire lines remain close to Kirstenbosch. Newlands Forest remains closed; and

  • Red Hill trails: Access from Red Hill, Slangkop, Ocean View, Jonkersdam and Kleinplaas Dam is restricted.


While the cause of these fires has not been identified yet, dangerous wildfires, particularly in this region, are increasingly likely because of climate change, which causes increased frequency and severity of hot, dry weather, or “fire weather”. This makes vegetation dry up and landscapes become more combustible, as explained in a 2022 article in The Conversation. 

Table Mountain fire A helicopters battles the Table Mountain National Park blaze on 23 February 2025. The fire has intensified. (Photo: Gallo Images / Ashley Vlotman)


Fire weather conditions and climate


Dr Stefaan Conradie, a climate science lecturer at the University of Cape Town (UCT), said Cape Town summers, especially late summers, have always presented weather conditions conducive to wildfire spread. This is a relatively long, dry season, with strong and persistent winds and relatively low humidity.  

“This rapidly dries out vegetation that grew quickly during the winter and spring wet season. Wind can also carry burning material ahead of the active fire line, helping the fire spread. Higher temperatures reduce relative humidity, which dries out vegetation (fire fuel) and increases the intensity of the fire,” Conradie said.

That’s why fynbos has become fire-adapted and even fire-dependent. In wetter areas, such as the Table Mountain chain, Conradie said that if you keep fire out for long enough, hyper-diverse, fire-prone fynbos is slowly replaced by low-diversity forests. 

Conradie was part of the research team from UCT and Coventry University in the UK, which found that climate change played a huge role in the severity of the Devil’s Peak fire that destroyed UCT’s Jagger Library in April 2021 and caused an estimated R1-billion in damages to UCT alone. 

Conradie said fire frequency is driven overwhelmingly by human behaviour and infrastructure, but that the tendency towards longer, warmer dry seasons would generally increase the potential intensity of fires, especially under the most extreme wildfire risk conditions.

But he said the weather experienced since Sunday morning (when the fire started) has been near-normal in terms of temperature, with relatively high humidity levels, but also strong winds – “that’s quite normal for a Cape Town February”.

As for what role drought and vegetation dryness play in the likelihood of wildfires in the region, Conradie said it was important to distinguish drought (much lower than normal rainfall or water availability) from seasonal drying. 

“Seasonal drying is why Cape Town and its surroundings are susceptible to frequent summer fires. This is normal and has always been part of Cape Town’s climate. Drought increases this drying, extending the fire season and exacerbating potential fire severity.”

At the moment, Conradie said that after a very wet winter (July to August 2024) we are now in a summer season that’s been somewhat drier than usual, although not extreme enough to qualify as a drought.

From a climate trends perspective, the potential for autumn drying has the potential to extend the length of the fire season.

“As seen in California, if the severe berg wind season starts before substantial winter rains arrive, that has the potential to drive extreme fire behaviour outside the normal fire season,” he said. 

He added that it would be worth assessing the risk of such a scenario for the southwestern Cape, and that the June 2022 Helderberg fire could be considered as a case study.

This summer fire season, according to the Agricultural Research Council, using MODIS satellite data, the Western Cape has thus far seen well below average fire activity. DM

Read more about wildfires and their impact in the Western Cape in Daily Maverick’s 2024 series on wildfires. The 2023/24 wildfire season was described as one of the province’s most intense fire seasons in years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REeWvTRUpMk

 

Categories:

Tags: