Cape Storm and Knysna fires

by Diana Studer

- gardening for biodiversity

in Cape Town, South Africa

The good news is that the Cape Storm broke thru the South Atlantic High which has been diverting our 'normal' winter rain south to the ocean. We have water flowing into Cape Town's dams. Up 1.6% since last week to 21.2%. The bad news was high winds, 12 metre swells along the coast. For the first time we had a 'snow' day - schools and universities were closed. People were encouraged to stay at home and keep off the roads (unless you are emergency services). As I tried to follow the breaking news, I had to avoid the fake news about our weather. Strangely enough, the truth wasn't awful enough for people!

False Bay Ecology Park

False Bay Ecology Park

The very bad news is those high winds became berg wind (hot coming down from the mountains) with terrible fires in Knysna. Evacuations. Bradley Richards a 20 year old trained volunteer fireman lost his life to 70% burns. A young family died when the fire trapped them as they were leaving their home. 7 lives lost. Many homes destroyed. As they began to get the Knysna fire under control, a second huge fire began near Port Elizabeth.

PS News followup after the fire.

Five factors that produced the perfect inferno Drought - leaf litter - compost - spontaneous combustion. Afro-montane and milkwood forests retard the fire. Wind gusts over 110 km/h fan the fire to over 2000C (not a typo!). When a Thermal Wave descends on a structure like a house, it forces the roof down with immense pressure while the extreme heat melts glass and disintegrates bricks.

The biggest disaster in South African history Our first objective when the fires started was evacuation.

False Bay Ecology Park
Landfill ahead, waste water treatment works behind
False Bay to the far left

In the calm before the storm, last Saturday we went birding with the Church in Creation at the sewage works (False Bay Ecology Park) Near the landfill which attracts pelicans sadly, although each day's garbage is promptly covered with builder's rubble. The original vlei has been extended to many pans - previously used as settling ponds. Now the waste water is processed in digester tanks and the wetlands provide important habitat for local and migratory birds. With hippo and eland at neighbouring Rondevlei.

Landfill

Garbage trucks and birds at the landfill

Along the shore of Zeekoevlei the picnic and birding sites have composting loos, which we used at Kogelberg and Rocher Pan. Not what I expected to see in the city, but a good idea here.

Waste water treatment works

Composting toilets at Zeekoevlei picnic site

Counting June as my eighth blogaversary, since I began with a Black Stork in our Porterville garden in 2009. About my blogging in 2017. I changed to the Soho Theme in April. I have learnt to compress images with Faststone - which loads quicker with better quality. I have a new camera (Canon G9 Powershot X).

Sacred ibis

I am still using Blogger, StatCounter and ClustrMap to see readers of my blog, Feedly to read your blogs (Picasa for collages)

Fish Hoek beach on a calm day

False Bay
the waves peacefully lapping in to the shore

Fresh header IS our False Bay beach where we walk on a sunny winter day.

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Pictures by Diana and Jürg Studer

of Elephant's Eye on False Bay

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