The City has confirmed that the Helderberg Nature Reserve will remain closed for the next month to give the biodiversity team time to assess the damage and determine which reinstatement measures are required.
This follows a fire that ripped through the mountain slopes of Helderberg near Somerset West this past weekend, resulting in two firefighters getting injured and hospitalised and at least five families left devastated as the blaze ripped through their homes next to Silwerboomkloof nature reserve.
The City’s Fire Rescue Services; Biodiversity Management staff and Volunteer Wildfire Services continued with the mopping up operations throughout Sunday until significant amounts of rain started falling in the reserve during the early hours of Monday morning.
According to the City, approximately 280 hectares of the reserve has been burnt, however, ecologically, they said the fire has not had a negative impact as much of the veld was mature and due for a managed ecological burn. While the team is still assessing the damage, they confirmed that various benches, water bars on the trails and a portion of the boardwalk around the duck pond were destroyed by the fire.
The City’s deputy mayor and mayoral committee Member for Spatial Planning and Environment, Alderman Eddie Andrews, thanked the teams and partners for being on the front line with regard to managing this wildfire and for the seamless operational planning and teamwork displayed throughout.
He said over the next few weeks, the reserve staff would tend to urgent erosion work and focus on making the infrastructure, such as the fences and picnic area, safe for public use.
“While wildfires are unplanned, they do provide the opportunity to achieve several interventions after the fire. One can remove old infrastructure such as internal fences, and potentially remove, dumping and other foreign material. As in the case of the Helderberg reserve, the fire is also a great catalyst for speeding up planned ecological restoration activities,” he said.
Andrews added that most of the vegetation in the area of this fire had been around 13 years old. “Therefore good seed banks are in place for germinating this winter. We therefore look forward to spectacular bulb displays in the reserve this spring,” he said.
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Picture: Cape Town ETC gallery
